LIBRARY  ^x 

University  of  California 

IRVINE 


-ROM    THE.    H« 


LIFE   OF  WASHINGTON 


BY 

VIRGINIA   F.  TOWNSEND 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW   YORK 
WORTHINGTON  CO.,  747  BROADWAY 

1888 


E 
3) 


COPYRIGHT,  1887 
BY  VIRGINIA  F.  TOWNSEND 


Press  of  J.  J.  Little   &  Co. 
Astor  Place,  New  York. 


TO  THE  MILLIONS  WHO  SIT  AROUND  THE  FIRESIDES  OF 
AMERICA,  WHOSE  FREEDOM  HE  FOUGHT  FOR,  AND  WHOSE 
LIBERTIES  HE  WON,  THIS  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  WASHINGTON  IS 
DEDICATED,  BY  ITS  AUTHOR. 


PREFACE. 

So  many  lives  of  George  Washington  have 
already  been  written  that  a  new  one  perhaps1  re- 
quires some  justification. 

The  character  and  deeds  of  the  man  who  stands 
in  the  foreground  of  American  history  may  be 
regarded  from  many  sides. 

The  brief  biography  in  these  pages  must,  at 
the  beginning,  claim  to  be  a  woman's  way  of 
looking  at  George  Washington. 

In  going  over  the  familiar  ground,  the  author 
believes  she  has  entered  some  by-paths  where  she 
has  gained  a  new  view  of  the  figure  which  stands 
in  solitary  majesty  in  the  heart  and  imagination 
of  the  American  people. 

The  author  has  also  endeavored,  while  adhering 
strictly  to  the  truths  of  history,  to  set  the  great 
scenes  and  crises  in  the  career  of  Washington  in 


6  Preface. 

a  picturesque  and  dramatic  form  before  her 
readers. 

The  limits  of  this  sketch  do  not,  of  course, 
admit  of  the  broad  lines  and  the  grouping  of 
stately  figures  with  which  other  writers  have 
filled  their  larger  historic  canvases. 

To  George  Washington,  when  he  reached  the 
splendor  of  his  power  and  greatness,  his  Virginia 
farm  and  his  Mount  Vernon  fireside  were  the 
dearest  objects  of  his  ambitions  and  affections. 

The  author  hopes  that  the  real  man,  not  only 
the  great  general,  the  wise  statesman,  but  he  who 
moved  about  that  Virginia  farm  and  sat  at  that 
Mount  Vernon  fireside,  may  live  and  breathe  in 
these  pages. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I.  PACK 

SIXTEEN  YEARS 13 

CHAPTER  II. 
FROM  BOYHOOD  TO  MANHOOD 34 

CHAPTER   III. 
THE  YOUNG  HOPE  OF  VIRGINIA 48 

CHAPTER   IV. 
WINNING  His  SPURS 63 

CHAPTER  V. 
BRADDOCK'S  BATTLE-FIELD 75 

CHAPTER  VI. 
THE  KNIGHT  SANS  PEUR  ET  SANS  REPROCHE 88 

CHAPTER  VII. 
LOVER  AND  SOLDIER 103 

CHAPTER  VIII.           0 
MARRIAGE  AND  MOUNT  VERNON in 

CHAPTER   IX. 
ENGLAND  AND  AMERICA 135 


8  Contents. 

CHAPTER  X.  PACK 

GATHERING  OF  THE  STORM 159 

CHAPTER  XI. 
THE  AMERICAN  REVOLUTION 175 

CHAPTER  XII. 
THE  COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF 187 

CHAPTER   XIII. 
THE  PEACE 206 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
THE  FIRST  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 217 

CHAPTER   XV. 

THE  GRAND,  SIMPLE  LIFE  :  THE  SUN  TURNING  WEST- 
WARD  237 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
To  THE  END — DECEMBER  17,  1799 251 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PORTRAIT Frontispiece. 

FACING  PAGB 

CAVE  CASTLE.     THE   RESIDENCE  OF  THE  WASHING- 
TONS  IN  YORKSHIRE,  ENGLAND 16 

THE  HOME  OF  GEORGE  WASHINGTON'S  BOYHOOD 22 

WASHINGTON.     A  VIRGINIA  COLONEL  AT  FORTY 32 

WASHINGTON'S  TELESCOPE 38 

LAFAYETTE — THE  FRIEND  OF  AMERICA.      THIS  WAS 
PAINTED  BY  C.  W.  PEALE  IN  1778 48 

WASHINGTON'S     FIRST     HEADQUARTERS    ON    WILLS' 
CREEK 64 

WASHINGTON  AND  LAFAYETTE 80 

BIBLE  USED  AT  THE  INAUGURATION  OF  WASHINGTON.  80 

WASHINGTON  CROSSING  THE  DELAWARE 96 

THE  BOSTON  MEDAL 112 

THE  VERNON  MEDAL 112 

WASHINGTON'S  HEADQUARTERS  NEAR  NEWBURGH 128 

BATTLE  OF  PRINCETON 136 

MRS.  WASHINGTON  AT  THE  TIME  OF  HER  MARRIAGE.  152 


io  List  of  Illustrations. 

FACING   PAGE 

WASHINGTONrS   ENGLISH  COACH l6o 

WHITE  HOUSE 176 

MOUNT  VERNON 192 

WASHINGTON'S  GOLD  WATCH 216 

THE  SWORD  AND  THE  STAFF 216 

WASHINGTON'S  LAST  WATCH  SEAL 216 

WASHINGTON'S  TOMB 232 

WASHINGTON'S  MONUMENT,   IN  UNION  SQUARE,  NEW 
YORK 248 


LIFE  OF 
GEORGE  WASHINGTON. 


CHAPTER  I. 

SIXTEEN    YEARS. 

IN  an  old  family  Bible — always  a  price- 
less heirloom  in  a  Virginia  household — • 
many  curious  eyes  have  read  this  entry  : 
"  George  Washington,  son  to  Augustine, 
and  Mary  his  wife,  was  born  ye  eleventh 
day  of  February  1733,  about  ten  in  the 
morning,  and  was  baptized  the  3d  of 
April  following." 

In  an  ancient,  one-story  homestead, 
where  the  steep  roof  sloped  down  into 
low,  overhanging  eaves,  and  where 


14       Life  of  George   Washington. 

either  end,  according  to  the  fashion  of 
the  time,  was  flanked  by  an  immense 
chimney,  George  Washington  first  saw 
the  light  on  the  winter  morning  of  Feb- 
ruary 22d  (N.  S.),  1732. 

History  has  preserved  for  us  the 
wide  rejoicings,  the  gay  pageants,  the 
grand  ceremonials,  which  greeted  a  good 
many  births  in  the  last  century.  The 
one  which  lies  recorded  in  such  quaint 
terms  in  the  old  family  Bible  must  have 
made  a  very  slight  ripple  on  the  surface 
of  human  affairs.  There  was  no  blazing 
of  bonfires,  no  ringing  of  bells,  no  beat- 
ing of  drums,  because  a  boy  was  born 
that  day  in  the  simple  homestead  on 
Bridge's  Creek. 

Mary,  only  a  little  while  ago  the 
beautiful  belle  of  the  Northern  Neck, 
with  "  hair  like  flax,  and  cheeks  like 


Sixteen   Years.  1 5 

May-blossoms,"  must  have  looked  with 
a  young  mother's  pride  and  joy  into 
the  eyes  of  her  first-born ;  the  father 
must  have  welcomed  the  goodly  son  of 
his  second  marriage,  and  the  two  boys 
of  the  first  one,  and  the  friends  and 
neighbors  of  the  quiet  old  colonial  set- 
tlement, must  have  brought  greetings 
and  congratulations  in  the  kindly  fash- 
ion of  a  century  and  a  half  ago. 

The  child,  whose  beginnings  were  so 
simple,  came  of  a  stanch  old  English 
race.  Its  roots  could  easily  be  traced 
up  to  the  century  that  succeeded  the 
Norman  Conquest.  The  heads  of  the 
family  held  estates  and  bore  their  part 
bravely  in  the  fierce  wars  and  the  gay 
pageants  of  the  time.  Their  names  oc- 
cur, in  more  or  less  varying  forms,  in 
old,  yellow,  time-worn  records.  One 


1 6       Life  of  George   Washington. 

who  searches  will  find  that  those  early 
Washingtons  always  made  an  honorable 
figure,  and  always  played  their  part 
manfully  in  their  time  and  place. 

Loyalty  seems  to  have  been  in  their 
blood,  for  they  held  to  the  failing  fort- 
unes of  the  Stuarts,  and  one  of  them 
lost  his  life  under  the  gallant,  headlong 
Prince  Rupert  at  the  storming  of  Bris- 
tol. Then  hard  times  befell.  It  is 
likely  the  Washingtons,  like  many 
other  brave  souls,  had  to  pay  dearly 
for  their  adhesion  to  that  bad,  lost 
cause.  During  the  Protectorate  two  of 
the  brothers  emigrated  to  America,  and 
settled  themselves  in  the  wild,  beautiful 
country  between  the  Rappahannock  and 
Potomac  rivers.  Here  the  strong  qual- 
ities of  the  race  would  be  sure  to  make 
their  mark.  One  of  these  English 


Sixteen   Years.  1 7 

brothers  settled  on  Bridge's  Creek,  mar- 
ried, owned  a  large  estate,  became  a 
magistrate,  and  one  of  the  leading  men 
of  the  colony.  His  descendants  inher- 
ited and  improved  his  estate,  of  which 
the  old  homestead,  where  his  great- 
grandson,  George  Washington,  was 
born,  formed  a  part. 

Not  long  after  his  birth  the  family 
changed  their  residence  for  one  on  the 
Rappahannock.  The  pleasant  meadow 
which  surrounded  the  house  and 
stretched  down  to  the  river  must  have 
been  among  the  earliest  things  in 
George  Washington's  memory.  On 
this  meadow,  bordered  by  the  brown, 
glancing  river,  he  spent  many  days  of 
his  free,  happy  boyhood.  One  fancies 
him,  always  tall  and  stalwart  for  his 
years,  running  and  shouting  amid  the 


1 8       Life  of  George   Washington. 

tall  green  grass,  chasing  the  butterflies 
through  the  red  clover  and  wild  daisies ; 
watching  with  grave,  blue,  childish  eyes 
the  swift  current  of  the  Rappahannock ; 
setting  his  toy  canoes  afloat  on  the 
stream ;  laying  snares  for  squirrels  and 
rabbits — a  busy,  swift-footed,  keen-eyed 
boy,  gaining  in  this  free,  wide,  out-door 
life  those  tastes  and  habits  which  were 
to  become  the  passion  of  his  later 
years. 

The  material  for  a  biography  is,  at 
this  early  period,  rather  scanty.  The 
story  of  the  hatchet  and  the  cherry  sap- 
ling, whether  true  or  not,  is  singularly 
characteristic.  It  shows  the  strong  im- 
pression which  the  sensitive  conscience 
of  the  child  must  have  made  on  those 
around  him.  Nobody  would  ever  have 
thought  of  relating  such  a  story  in  con- 


Sixteen    Years.  1 9 

nection   with   the   boyhood  of  Napoleon 
Bonaparte. 

George  Washington  had  a  singularly 
happy  childhood  in  that  old  Westmore- 
land home,  where  the  wide  meadow 
sloped  down  to  the  river.  He  had 
been  born  into  a  good  place.  Those 
first  years  struck  their  roots  into  a 
simple,  wholesome,  vigorous  life.  We 
can  imagine  him,  a  shy,  grave,  slender- 
limbed  boy,  going  to  the  "  old  field 
schoolhouse "  where  he  learned  to  read 
and  write,  and  acquired  some  rudiment- 
ary arithmetic.  He  had,  too,  the  ines- 
timable blessing  of  a  sensible,  high- 
minded  mother.  There  was  a  good 
deal  of  the  old  Roman  matron  in  the 
character  of  the  Virginia  planter's 
wife.  Her  oldest  son  inherited  from 
her  that  dignity  of  presence  and  man- 


2O       Life  of  George   Washington. 

ner  which  afterward  made  so  profound 
an  impression  on  all  who  came  in  con- 
tact with  him.  He  was  brought  up  in 
an  atmosphere  of  great  reserve  and 
formality,  and  his  early  training  left  its 
mark  on  him  throughout  his  life.  Mrs. 
Washington  exacted  a  deference  from 
her  sons  in  curious  contrast  with  the 
freer  habits  of  our  own  times.  It  is 
difficult  to  fancy  that  group  of  stalwart 
boys,  with  their  young  sister,  ever  sport- 
ing in  wild  merriment  about  the  stately 
mother.  They  must  have  been  early 
trained  to  habits  of  prompt,  implicit 
obedience.  Even  after  he  had  reached 
manhood  it  was  Washington's  habit  to 
address  his  mother,  in  his  letters,  as 
"  Honored  Madam,"  an  example  which 
Young  America  has  not  thought  it  wise 
to  follow. 


Sixteen   Years.  2 1 

Yet,  with  all  her  high  notions  of 
maternal  authority,  Mrs.  Washington 
does  not  appear  to  have  been  a  severe 
parent.  It  is  doubtful  whether  there 
was  a  happier  home  on  all  the  Western 
Continent  in  the  second  quarter  of  the 
last  century  than  that  low,  steep-roofed 
Westmoreland  cottage. 

George  Washington's  early  advan- 
tages were  meager  enough  when  com- 
pared with  those  of  the  present  genera- 
tion. But  he  had  a  home-training  of 
more  value  than  many  books.  His  out- 
door life,  too,  was  admirably  adapted  to 
develop  his  health  and  the  singularly 
keen  perceptions  with  which  nature  had 
endowed  him.  Almost  from  infancy  he 
showed  a  passionate  love  of  all  athletic 
sports,  and  a  little  later  led  his  com- 
rades in  all  those  feats  which  taxed 


22        Life  of  George   Washington. 

their  young  strength  and  agility.  Boys 
are  keen  judges  of  character.  They 
were  not  long  in  learning  there  was 
one  on  whose  word  and  innate  sense  of 
justice  they  could  always  rely.  It  be- 
came the  custom  to  refer  all  their  child- 
ish disputes  to  him  for  final  settlement. 
We  can  imagine  the  shy,  silent  boy,  so 
brave  and  alert  among  his  comrades,  sit- 
ting in  the  long  winter  evenings  in  a  cor- 
ner of  the  great-mouthed  chimney,  and, 
while  the  huge  blazing  logs  filled  the  low- 
ceiled  room  with  ruddy  light,  drinking  in 
the  tales  of  his  elders;  stirring  tales  of 
wild  beasts  in  the  woods  and  Indian  wars 
on  the  border.  All  his  young  blood  must 
have  been  fired  as  he  listened ;  but  nobody 
dreamed  what  a  role  the  silent  boy  in  the 
corner  was  to  take  a  little  later  in  scenes 
like  those  whose  recital  charmed  away  the 


Sixteen   Years.  23 

long  winter  evenings  in  the  old  colonial 
farmhouses. 

George  was  only  seven  years  old  when 
his  half-brother  Lawrence  returned  from 
England,  where  he  had  been  sent,  as  the 
eldest  son,  to  complete  his  education. 
This  was  a  great  event  in  the  boy's  life. 
Lawrence,  trained  and  accomplished  by 
foreign  travel,  study,  and  polished  soci- 
ety, was  fourteen  years  the  senior  of  his 
brother.  The  youth  and  the  boy  became 
tenderly  attached  to  each  other.  George 
had  that  immense  admiration  for  Law- 
rence which  a  young,  undeveloped  boy 
often  feels  for  an  elder  brother  familiar 
with  the  world.  He  made  the  young 
Oxford  graduate  his  model  in  all  things. 
Lawrence  was  worthy  of  this  affection  and 
trust.  He  had  the  strong  character,  the 
high  virtues,  of  his  race.  His  example 


24       Life  of  George   Washington. 

must  have  been  of  infinite  benefit  to  his 
young  brother. 

Indeed,  the  more  one  regards  the  early 
life  of  George  Washington,  the  more  one 
perceives  how  admirably  it  was  adapted 
to  the  development  and  training  of  the 
man  for  the  great  part  he  was  to  play  on 
the  stage  of  the  world. 

That  early  home  was  not  shadowed  and 
chilled,  like  so  many  young  lives  of  great 
men,  by  struggles  with  poverty  and  lack 
of  sympathy.  The  boy  who  was  grow- 
ing up  in  the  quiet  colonial  neighborhood, 
with  the  vast,  solemn  wildernesses  of  the 
New  World  all  about  him,  was,  no  doubt, 
far  happier  than  any  prince  at  that  day 
in  the  old  one. 

It  is  probable  that  the  boy's  first  real 
acquaintance  with  grief  was  occasioned 
by  the  death  of  his  father.  At  eleven 


Sixteen   Years.  25 

he  could  understand  something  of  what 
that  meant  for  himself,  his  widowed 
mother,  his  three  young  brothers  and 
their  sister.  Happily,  Lawrence  was  at 
home  at  this  sad  time.  The  young 
captain  had  long  been  absent  with  his 
regiment  in  the  West  Indies,  under  Ad- 
miral Vernon.  His  marriage  with  Anne 
Fairfax,  which  would  insure  his  settling 
down  on  his  share  of  the  estate,  had 
been  on  the  eve  of  taking  place,  and 
was  only  delayed  by  the  death  of  his 
father. 

The  widow  and  her  young  family 
were  left  with  ample  means.  Her  hus- 
band showed  his  estimation  of  her  char- 
acter by  appointing  her  guardian  of 
their  children's  property.  She  proved 
herself  equal  to  that  high  trust,  and  to 
the  heavy  and  varied  responsibilities 


26       Life  of  George   Washington. 

which    her    husband's    loss    devolved    on 
her. 

Lawrence  married  the  eldest  daughter 
of  the  Fairfaxes  and  settled  at  his  own 
home,  which  he  named  Mount  Vernon, 
in  remembrance  of  his  old  commander. 
The  intimacy  which  now  sprang  up  be- 
tween George  and  the  family  of  his  sister- 
in-law  was  of  great  importance  to  the  boy 
at  this  formative  period  of  his  life.  The 
Fairfaxes  were  among  the  most  influen- 
tial people  of  the  province.  Polished  and 
cultivated,  with  the  habits  and  traditions 
they  had  brought  from  their  ancient 
country-seat  in  Yorkshire,  they  repre- 
sented much  that  was  best  and  worthiest 
in  the  old  colonial  society.  Their  house 
at  Belvoir,  a  few  miles  below  Mount 
Vernon,  was  full  of  gay  young  people 
of  both  sexes,  and  it  must  have  resem- 


Sixteen    Years.  2  7 

bled  in  its  leading  features  an  English 
country-house  of  the  higher  class,  though 
this,  probably,  had  something  of  the 
larger  freedom  and  more  robust  life  of 
the  New  World.  Here  came,  to  be  al- 
most one  of  the  household  in  a  little 
while,  the  blue-eyed,  grave-faced,  rather 
overgrown  boy  from  the  Rappahannock, 
keenly  observant  of  all  that  was  going 
on  about  him ;  a  little  shy,  with  a  con- 
sciousness of  awkward  movements  and 
rustic  manners  among  all  these  well- 
bred  people,  and  showing  his  best  in 
the  out-door  feats  and  games,  where  he 
was  sure  to  be  the  leader. 

There  seems  to  have  been  no  thought 
on  the  part  of  the  boy's  relatives  of 
sending  him  abroad  and  giving  him  the 
advantages  which  his  elder  brother  had 
enjoyed.  Perhaps  the  early  tastes  he 


28        Life  of  George   Washington. 

manifested  had  something  to  do  with 
this.  They  were  of  the  most  practical 
kind,  and  the  whole  aim  of  his  education 
was  merely  "to  equip  him  for  the  ordi- 
nary business  of  life."  He  went  to  live 
a  while  with  Augustine,  his  younger  half- 
brother,  and  in  the  neighborhood  was  a 
school,  to  which  he  was  sent,  and  which 
was  at  least  an  improvement  on  the  old 
one. 

So,  in  studies  at  school,  and  frequent 
visits  at  Mount  Vernon  and  Belvoir,  the 
years  went  by,  and  the  grave,  shy, 
silent  boy  reached  his  fourteenth  birth- 
day. 

Then  a  longing  to  enter  the  navy 
took  possession  of  him.  The  mother's 
disapproval  was  the  only  thing  that 
stood  in  the  way.  This  was  at  last 
overcome.  Mrs.  Washington  was  pre- 


Sixteen    Years.  29 

vailed  on  to  give  a  reluctant  consent. 
The  midshipman's  warrant  was  procured 
The  trunk  was  aboard  the  ship.  Then 
the  mother's  heart  failed  her. 

Thoughts  of  her  boy's  youth,  of  the 
long  separation  between  them,  of  the 
hardships  and  perils  before  him,  con- 
quered the  resolute  woman.  She  again 
earnestly  opposed  his  departure.  That 
of  course,  ended  the  matter.  George 
swallowed  his  disappointment — it  must 
have  been  a  bitter  one  at  that  age — and 
returned  to  school,  where  he  continued 
for  the  next  few  years.  He  showed 
great  delight  in  the  study  and  practice 
of  land-surveys.  Whatever  he  did  was 
done  thoroughly.  There  was  none  of 
the  haste  and  carelessness  of  youth  in 
his  work.  His  field-books,  where  he 
made  his  diagrams,  and  entered  his 


30       Life  of  George   Washington. 

measurements  and  boundaries,  were  mod- 
els in  all  respects.  Order,  promptness, 
exactness,  were  a  part  of  his  being. 

The  schooldays  were  pleasantly  va- 
ried with  frequent  visits  at  Mount  Ver- 
non  and  Belvoir.  At  each  of  these 
places  he  enjoyed  a  refined  and  grace- 
ful family  life,  at  a  period  when  tastes 
are  formed  and  impressions  are  most 
vivid. 

One  cannot  restrain  a  smile  over  por- 
tions of  that  minute  code  of  manners 
and  morals.  Yet  what  a  true,  earnest 
young  soul  shines  through  all  the  prim 
rules,  the  painstaking  details !  How 
resolute  the  boy  was  to  do  his  best ! 
How  careful  in  all  that  concerned  his 
morals  and  his  manners  ! 

He  had    been    born    in    the  Georgian 

o 

age.     He  bore  the  name    of   its    second 


Sixteen    Years,  3 1 

monarch.  There  was  one  subject  which 
must  have  held  a  large  place  in  the 
horizon  of  George  Washington's  boy- 
hood. Little  as  we  realize  it  now,  it 
was  the  burning  question  of  three  dec- 
ades with  Great  Britain  and  her  prov- 
inces. On  its  decision  hung  the  dearest 
interests  of  the  colonies,  their  religion, 
their  laws,  their  future.  Would  the 
long"  struggle  between  the  House  of 

o  o  o 

Brunswick  and  the  House  of  Stuart  end 
at  last  for  the  German  Elector  or  the 
Papist  Pretender  ?  Tremendous  issues 
hung  on  the  settlement  of  a  question 
which  every  man  must  have  felt  was 
doubtful,  until  after  the  Battle  of  Cullo- 
den.  This  took  place  the  summer  that 
George  Washington  was  thirteen  years 
old.  With  what  ea^er  interest  he  must 

O 

have  drunk    in   the  story  of  that  battle, 


32        Life  of  George   Washington. 

when  the  first  vessel  brought  the  news 
across  the  summer  seas  !  How  his 
whole  soul  must  have  kindled  with  joy 
at  tidings  of  the  victory !  How  little 
that  young  boy  dreamed  then  that  he 
—the  son  of  the  Westmoreland  planter 
— was  fated,  a  few  years  later,  to  deal 
the  House  of  Brunswick  its  heaviest 
blow  ! 

Lord  Fairfax,  the  tall,  gaunt,  eccen- 
tric old  English  nobleman,  who,  in  his 
youth,  had  figured  at  courts  and  en- 
joyed every  advantage  of  high  birth 
and  breeding,  was  at  Belvoir.  The  old 
nobleman  had  a  passion  for  hunting. 
In  the  midst  of  his  horses  and  hounds 
he  was  always  chasing  the  game  to 
cover  in  the  Virginia  woods,  with  all 
the  fiery  eagerness  with  which,  in  his 
youth,  he  had  followed  the  trail  over 


Sixteen   Years.  33 

the  Yorkshire  moors.  He  found  in  the 
young  schoolboy  a  companion  after  his 
own  heart,  as  eager  for  the  hounds,  as 
bold  in  the  saddle,  as  skilled  in  the 
chase.  The  woods  afforded  splendid  sport. 
The  two  were  always  out  hunting  to- 
gether. The  old  nobleman,  with  his 
Oxford  training,  his  memories  of 
courts,  his  stories  of  the  Blues — the 
regiment  of  which  he  had  been  a  mem- 
ber— his  keen  knowledge  of  men, 
learned  to  like  and  trust  the  boy  who 
came  on  occasional  visits  to  Belvoir. 

3 


CHAPTER   II. 

FROM    BOYHOOD    TO    MANHOOD. 

AT  sixteen,  George  Washington  no 
longer  seemed  a  boy.  His  figure  had 
shot  up  slender  and  tall,  while  his  out- 
door life,  his  surveys,  and  his  sports 
had  laid  the  foundations  of  his  splendid 
health.  It  is  easy  to  imagine  him  at 
this  period,  with  the  down  of  early 
manhood  upon  his  chin,  with  his  clear, 
gray-blue,  honest  eyes,  and  his  grave, 
noble,  strongly  marked  features.  I  im- 
agine him,  too,  a  little  formal  in  bearing 
and  speech,  not  altogether  self-possessed 
in  a  drawing-room,  or  likely  to  put 
young  girls'  at  their  ease.  He  had  no 
gift  of  small  talk — none  of  the  grace 


From  Boyhood  to  Manhood.        35 

and  lightness  of  the  mere  carpet  knight. 
The  great  moral  qualities  which  were 
alike  to  impress  friend  and  foe,  the  dig- 
nity of  presence  and  bearing  which,  in 
later  years,  so  often  overawed  those 
with  whom  he  was  brought  into  social 
relations,  could,  at  this  time,  only  have 
been  dimly  discerned  by  the  most  acute 
observer.  In  the  proudest  dream  of  his 
youth,  too,  that  boy  of  sixteen  had  no 
prescience  of  his  .future  greatness. 

He  probably,  at  this  period,  seemed 
to  ordinary  people  a  grave,  quiet,  un- 
assuming youth,  with  nothing  brilliant  or 
striking  on  the  surface.  Those  who 
knew'  him  best  must  have  felt  that  his 
strong  love  of  justice,  his  keen  sense  of 
honor,  and  his  perfect  integrity  were  a 
fairer  promise  for  his  future  than  the 
most  captivating  graces  of  mind  or 


36        Life  of  George   Washington. 

manner.  They  knew,  too,  what  a  fiery 
temper  lurked  under  the  modest  bear- 
ing; and  what  wrath  would  flame  out 
at  any  story  of  wrong  or  meanness  or 
treachery. 

Lord  Fairfax  gave  a  remarkable  proof 
of  his  appreciation  of  young  Washing- 
ton at  this  juncture.  The  old  noble- 
man held  vast  tracts  of  land  from  the 
Crown.  They  lay,  largely  unexplored, 
beyond  the  Blue  Ridge.  It  must  have 
astonished  everybody  when  he  suddenly 
proposed  that  the  boy  with  whom  he 
had  hunted  so  many  days  in  the  Vir- 
ginia woods  should  set  out  on  a  sur- 
vey of  these  lands.  The  offer  was 
eagerly  accepted.  From  that  hour  we 
hear  no  more  of  George  Washington's 
schooldays. 

He  set  out  at  once,  accompanied   by 


From  Boyhood  to  Manhood.        37 

one  of  the  young  Fairfaxes.  They  went 
through  a  pass  in  the  Blue  Ridge  and 
entered  the  beautiful  Valley  of  the  Shen- 
andoah.  They  camped  in  the  woods ; 
they  lived  on  game.  The  hardy,  ad- 
venturous life  suited  Washington  admi- 
rably. He  surveyed  wide  tracts  among 
the  mountains  and  about  the  South  Po- 
tomac ;  he  was  absent  some  weeks ;  his 
work,  on  his  return,  gave  the  amplest 
satisfaction  to  Lord  Fairfax. 

The  old  nobleman's  influence  probably 
secured  young  Washington's  appoint- 
ment soon  afterward  as  public  surveyor. 
He  spent  the  next  three  years  in  this 
congenial  work.  He  lived  much  of  the 
time  in  the  wildernesses  and  in  the 
wild,  varied,  unexplored  country  beyond 
the  Blue  Ridge.  It  was  a  splendid 
training  for  him.  What  a  mercy  it  was 


38       Life  of  George   Washington. 

that  nobody  thought  of  sending  him  at 
this  period  to  Oxford,  to  waste  his  stal- 
wart youth  in  class-recitations  and  dim 
'college  libraries  !  The  years  that 
awaited  him  held  tasks  heavier  than 
had  ever  fallen  to  human  lot;  and  for 
these  he  needed  the  trained  eye,  that 
took  in  everything  with  a  lightning 
glance ;  he  needed  the  iron  nerves,  that 
no  hail  of  bullets,  no  war-whoop  of  sav- 
ages, could  shake;  and  he  needed  a 
frame  seasoned  by  sun  and  tempest,  by 
exposure  and  hardship,  until  it  seemed 
to  have  the  fiber  of  some  mighty  oak 
of  the  forest. 

With  his  swift  temper  and  his  strong 
will,  George  Washington  was  not  likely 
to  be  always  a  saint  in  those  days.  But 
so  far  as  we  know,  he  was  singularly  free 
from  the  follies  and  vices  of  youth.  He 


From  Boyhood  to  Manhood \        39 

led  a  happy,  busy  life  at  this  period.  The 
rough  experiences  of  the  wildernesses 
were  alternated  with  visits  to  Belvoir, 
where  the  refining  social  and  educa- 
tional influences  of  his  boyhood  could 
still  maintain  their  ascendency.  He  re- 
turned here  to  follow  the  hounds  once 
more  with  Lord  Fairfax,  to  read  in  the 
old  nobleman's  library  the  Spectator  and 
English  history,  and  to  visit  his  favorite 
brother  at  Mount  Vernon.  During  these 
days  he  must  have  grown  familiar  with 
the  lives  of  the  greatest  of  England's 
patriots  and  statesmen.  His  soul  must 
have  been  fired  with  the  histories  of 
Eliot  and  Pym,  of  Hampden  and  Milton. 
The  young  Westmoreland  surveyor  was 
yet  to  prove  that  he  too  belonged  to 
that  mighty  breed  of  heroes.  How  lit- 
tle he  dreamed — that  manly,  modest 


4O       Life  of  George   Washington. 

youth — as  he  pored  over  those  records 
of  daring  and  self-sacrifice  and  life-long 
patriotism,  that  his  name  was  to  rank 
in  history  among  the  noblest  of  those 
whose  lives  he  was  drinking  in  with 
such  ardor  in  his  brief  vacations ! 

During  these  years  the  great  question 
on  which  hung  the  future  of  North 
America  was  coming  to  the  front.  It 
could  not,  in  the  nature  of  things,  be 
otherwise.  The  peace  of  Aix-la-Cha- 
pelle  had  left  the  English  and  French 
boundaries  on  the  Western  Continent  an 
open  question.  Each  nation  laid  abso- 
lute claim  to  the  vast  territories  beyond 
the  Alleghanies.  Each,  too,  no  doubt 
felt  its  claim  to  be  the  supreme  one. 
Each  was  eager  to  occupy  the  land  in 
advance,  and  thus  establish  the  right 
of  possession. 


From  Boyhood  to  Manhood.        41 

The  French  claim  was,  no  doubt,  a 
strong  one.  Their  explorers  and  mis- 
sionaries had  penetrated  far  beyond  any 
others  into  the  vast  western  wildernesses, 
and  they  insisted  on  their  double  right 
of  discovery  and  possession.  They  had 
scattered  forts  and  outposts  in  this  im- 
mense region,  and  they  were  bent  on 
uniting  Canada  by  a  long  chain  of  forts 
with  Louisiana. 

This  resolution  brought  the  two  na- 
tions into  direct  antagonism.  If  the 
French  claims  were  once  admitted,  the 
future  development  of  the  English  colo- 
nists would  be  confined  to  the  narrow 
area. between  the  Atlantic  and  the  Alle- 
ghanies.  The  great  continent  which 
stretched  to  the  West,  and  which  the 
Americans  had  long  regarded  as  the 
fair  heritage  of  their  descendants,  would 


42       Life  of  George   Washington. 

become  the   home  of  an   alien  and  hos- 
tile race. 

The  young  nation,  settled  sparsely 
along  the  sea-board,  had  strong  in- 
stincts of  the  splendid  career  that  lay 
before  her.  That  vast,  unexplored,  in- 
land world  would  afford  the  fitting  field 
on  which"  her  untried  energies  could 
freely  expand.  It  was  of  transcend- 
ent importance  to  secure  the  ground 
at  once.  The  English  colonists  met  the 
French  claims  by  boldly  insisting  on 
their  prior  ones.  They  declared  that 
"when  they  had  established  a  settle- 
ment on  the  eastern  coasts  of  America 
their  rights  extended  in  the  same  lati- 
tude from  sea  to  sea,"  and  they  now 
demanded  the  cession  of  the  coasts  of 
the  Bay  of  Fundy,  and  the  destruction 
of  every  French  fort  in  the  territory. 


From  Boyhood  to  Manhood.        43 

At  this  time  there  was  not  a  single 
white  settlement  in  all  the  great  world 
beyond  the  Alleghanies.  But  a  com- 
pany, among  whom  Washington's  elder 
brothers  were  prominent,  had  obtained 
from  the  Crown  a  grant  of  immense 
tracts  in  the  Ohio  Valley.  Their  pur- 
pose was  to  occupy  the  land  at  once 
with  settlements  and  garrisons.  Here, 
again,  the  French  had  forestalled  them. 
Their  posts  were  already  planted,  their 
roads  laid  out  in  the  disputed  terri- 
tory. 

This  encroachment  was  not  to  be 
borne.  The  English  company  resolved 
to  eject  the  intruders  by  peaceful  ways, 
if  possible ;  if  not,  by  the  old  stern  one 
of  battle. 

A  sudden  war  spirit  spread  through 
the  colonies.  Everybody  felt  that  the 


44       Life  of  George   Washington. 

enemy  must  be  at  once  driven  out  of 
their  strongholds.  The  militia  were 
put  in  training.  Washington  shared 
the  popular  feeling.  He  had  early 
given  evidence  that  he  inherited  the 
martial  spirit  of  his  race.  In  his  child- 
hood "he  liked  to  make  soldiers  of  his 
schoolmates.  They  had  their  mimic  pa- 
rades, reviews,  and  sham  fights  under 
him."  All  this,  probably,  had  gone  on 
in  that  old,  green,  wild-daisied  meadow 
which  bordered  the  Rappahannock. 

George  was  eighteen  now.  It  should 
always  be  borne  in  mind  that,  with  his 
tall  form,  strong  and  erect  as  a  young 
oak,  with  his  grave  features,  his  re- 
served, manly  bearing,  he  gave  an  im- 
pression of  being  considerably  older 
than  he  was.  Stirred  by  the  talk  and 
example  all  about  him,  he  took  lessons 


From  Boyhood  to  Manhood.        45 

in  fencing  also,  and  practiced  for  a  while 
with  immense  ardor. 

At  this  juncture,  however,  Lawrence's 
health,  which  had  always  been  delicate, 
broke  down.  He  had  desired  to  pro- 
cure for  his  young  brother  a  major's 
commission,  but  all  these  plans  had  now 
to  be  deferred.  The  physicians  insisted 
on  change  of  air,  and  at  their  advice 
the  brothers,  so  strongly  attached  to 
each  other,  sailed  for  Barbadoes  in  Sep- 
tember, 1751.  This  was  the  only  time 
that  George  Washington  ever  set  foot 
on  any  soil  but  his  native  one. 

The  novel  world,  the  mild  climate, 
the  quiet  life,  all  had  varied  attractions 
until  the  younger  of  the  travelers  had  a 
severe  attack  of  small-pox.  The  illness 
lasted  for  about  three  weeks.  He  al- 
ways retained  some  slight  marks  of  it. 


46        Life  of  George   Washington. 

On  his  recovery,  George  Washington 
went  to  a  theater.  It  must  have 
formed  a  memorable  event  in  his  life, 
for  he  had  never  visited  one  before.  It 
was  afterward  observed  that  he  always 
showed  a  decided  taste  for  the  drama. 

No  change  of  climate  could  avert 
the  doom  that  was  hanging  over  Law- 
rence. With  that  restlessness  which  ac- 
companies pulmonary  disease,  he  re- 
solved to  seek  Bermuda  in  the  early 
spring.  George  left  him  and  returned 
home,  intending  to  rejoin  his  brother 
with  his  sister-in-law.  But  all  these 
plans  were  put  to  flight  by  the  sudden 
appearance  of  Lawrence,  who  barely 
reached  Mount  Vernon  to  die  there. 

He  left  a  large  estate.  Its  manage- 
ment now  devolved  almost  entirely  on 
George.  The  property  was  to  revert  to 


From  Boyhood  to  Manhood.        47 

him  in  case  Lawrence's  only  daughter 
should  die  without  heirs.  The  months 
that  followed  must  have  been  crowded 
with  varied  tasks  and  heavy  responsi- 
bilities for  a  youth  who  had  hardly 
reached1  his  majority.  Heavier  ones, 
however,  were  soon  to  follow. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE   YOUNG    HOPE    OF   VIRGINIA. 

GOVERNOR  DINWIDDIE,  of  Virginia, 
was  looking  about  for  the  right  per- 
son to  send  on  a  mission  to  the  out- 
posts of  the  French  and  the  wigwams 
of  the  Indians.  The  white  men  were 
using  every  art  to  draw  the  western 
tribes  into  an  alliance.  The  mission 
would  be  of  immense  importance  to  the 
colonies.  It  required  a  man  of  varied 
qualities — cool,  hardy,  of  tried  courage 
and  great  sagacity.  He  would  have  to 
deal  with  the  wily  French  commanders 
of  the  garrisons ;  with  the  treacherous 
savages  of  the  frontiers.  He  would 
take  his  life  in  his  hands. 


The   Young  Hope  of  Virginia.     49 

George  Washington  was  finally  chosen 
for  an  expedition  whose  delicacy  and 
danger  required  such  a  varied  equip- 
ment. It  was  characteristic  that  he  set 
off  the  very  day  that  he  received  his 
credentials.  He  was  twenty-two  at  that 
time. 

The  whole  story  of  the  journey  reads 
like  a  romance.  It  is  not  possible  to 
tell  it  within  the  limits  of  this  sketch. 
It  was  slow,  toilsome  traveling  by  the 
swollen  rivers,  through  the  solitary 
wildernesses.  The  little  party  which  ac- 
companied Washington  was  composed 
of  an  Indian  interpreter,  several  hardy 
frontiersmen,  and  Christopher  Gist,  an 
intrepid  pioneer,  who  had  a  long  ac- 
quaintance with  Indian  character  and 
life. 

Under   the   lowering    November    sky, 


5O       Life  of  George   Washington. 

they  pushed  on  to  Logstown.  The 
winter  had  come  early  that  year. 
Fierce  storms  made  the  way  through 
the  wild  country  almost  impassable. 
But  they  reached  the  Indian  quarters  at 
last,  and,  after  various  delays,  held  the 
council  on  which  so  much  depended. 
Washington  conducted  himself  at  this 
juncture  with  great  tact  and  discretion. 
His  experience  with  the  Indians  in  his 
government  surveys  must  have  served 
him  immensely  now.  The  young  white 
man  succeeded  in  gaining  the  confi- 
dence of  the  savages.  They  offered 
him  the  sacred  pledge  of  wampum ; 
they  declared  him  and  his  people  their 
brothers  ;  they  promised  to  resist  all 
the  efforts  of  the  French  to  draw  them 
into  a  treaty ;  and,  at  his  own  request, 
they  agreed  to  furnish  him  with  an 


The  Young  Hope  of  Virginia.     51 

escort  to  Venango — the  headquarters  of 
the  enemy. 

Another  long  journey  of  seventy  miles 
through  the  wilderness  followed.  Bit- 
ter weather,  fierce  tempests,  and  heavy 
snows  combined  to  make  the  way  long 
and  perilous.  At  last,  on  the  4th  of 
December,  1753,  the  tired  party  caught 
sight  of  the  French  colors  flying  at  the 
lonely  outpost  of  Venango.  They  were, 
to  George  Washington,  the  unwelcome 
sign  of  the  intruder  and  foe.  How  lit- 
tle he  could  dream  that  a  day — still  in 
far  distant  years — was  coming  when 
those  colors  would  fly  for  him  at  the 
masthead,  and  move  in  closest  alliance 
with  his  own  to  the  battle ! 

The  travel-worn  party  was  received 
and  entertained  with  a  rough  hospital- 
ity. Washington,  however,  soon  pe/- 


52       Life  of  George   Washington. 

• 

ceived  that  secret  efforts  were  on  foot 
to  detach  his  Indian  allies  from  their 
allegiance  to  the  English.  They  were 
welcomed  at  headquarters  with  open 
arms,  and  plied  with  liquor;  and  the 
whole  party  was  detained  at  Venango  by 
every  conceivable  stratagem.  But  Wash- 
ington at  last  succeeded  in  getting  off 
with  his  sachems. 

Four  more  days  of  bitter  travel 
through  the  winter  wildernesses  brought 
them  to  the  fort  on  French  Creek, 
fifteen  miles  from  Lake  Erie.  Here 
Washington  and  his  interpreter  were 
received  with  great  military  form  at  the 
gate,  and  conducted  to  the  officer  in 
command,  an  ancient,  silver-haired  chev- 
alier, who  united  the  bearing  of  the 
soldier  to  all  the  grace  and  ceremony 
of  the  old  French  school. 


The  Young  Hope  of  Virginia.     53 

Nothing  could  exceed  the  courtesy  of 
Washington's  reception.  He  announced 
his  errand,  delivered  the  governor's 
messages  and  papers,  and,  with  his 
native  frankness,  would  have  entered 
at  once  on  the  business  which  had 
brought  him,  in  the  depths  of  the 
winter,  to  the  fort  on  French  Creek. 
But  the  'chevalier  politely  declined  to 
receive  the  documents  in  the  absence 
of  his  superior,  who  was  hourly  ex- 
pected from  the  next  post. 

On  the  arrival  of  the  captain,  the 
formalities  of  presentation  were  again 
gone  through  with,  and  the  officers 
held  a  private  council  over  the  Gover- 
nor's complaints  and  covert  threats  in 
case  the  French  did  not  peaceably 
evacuate  the  territory  into  which  they 
had  forced  themselves. 


54       Life  of  George   Washington. 

Washington  was  not,  of  course,  ad- 
mitted to  the  conference.  But  the  next 
two  days  were  consumed  in  private 
councils.  The  young  Virginian  had 
evidently  thrust  his  head  into  the  lion's 
mouth.  He  had  now  to  match  himself 
with  veterans  well-seasoned  in  all  the 
arts  and  diplomacy  of  French  camps 
and  courts.  It  was,  doubtless,  in  his 
disfavor  that  he  could  not  speak  a  word 
of  their  tongue.  "  But  he  made  the 
most  of  his  time.  He  took  notes  of 
the  plan,  dimensions,  and  strength  of 
the  fort,  and  of  everything  about  it ; 
he  gave  orders  to  his  people  also  to 
take  an  exact  account  of  the  canoes 
already  at  hand,  and  of  those  that  were 
being  constructed,  to  carry  troops  down 
the  river  in  the  spring."  Nothing 
seems  to  have  escaped  his  keen,  trained 


The   Young  Hope  of  Virginia.      55 

observation.  But  though  he  was  treat- 
ed— so  far  as  appears — with  unvary- 
ing courtesy  during  his  whole  stay,  he 
saw  clearly  that  subtle  schemes  were 
at  work  to  undermine  his  influence  with 
the  savages  and  to  retard  his  move- 
ments. When  it  came  to  any  discus- 
sion of  business,  his  questions  were 
evaded,  his  remonstrances  unheeded. 
He  could  get  no  satisfaction  from  these 
people,  with  their  polished  manners  and 
their  slippery  talk.  At  that  lonely  out- 
post, surrounded  by  foes,  in  the  midst  of 
intrigues,  he  was  filled  with  distrust  and 
anxiety.  Here  again,  as  before,  the 
sachems  of  the  party  were  plied  with 
liquor.  In  order  to  detain  them  awhile 
at  the  fort,  a  promise  of  guns  was  held 
out  to  them — an  irresistible  temptation 
to  savages. 


56       Life  of  George    Washington. 

Washington's  coolness  and  resolution, 
at  this  crisis,  barely  extricated  his  party 
from  the  toils  of  the  enemy.  The 
chevalier  at  last  delivered  a  sealed  re- 
ply to  the  governor's  letter.  The  In- 
dians, bent  on  receiving  their  guns, 
besought  him  to  delay  his  departure 
until  the  next  morning.  He  consented 
at  last.  The  French  were  obliged  to 
keep  their  word  and  deliver  their  pres- 
ents at  the  time  appointed,  after  which 
the  little  company  embarked  in  their 
frail  canoes  on  French  Creek.  The 
stream  was  swollen,  turbid,  and  full  of 
ice.  The  navigation  was  so  dangerous 
that  it  was  five  or  six  days  before  the 
travelers  once  more  caught  sight  of  the 
French  colors  floating  triumphantly  at 
Venango.  Here  Washington  was  forced 
to  part  from  his  Indians  for. a  day  or 


The   Young  Hope  of  Virginia.      57 

two,  as  one  of  the  chiefs  had  met  with 
an  accident.  The  young  commander 
had  thus  far  maintained  his  ascendency 
over  his  savage  allies,  but  he  naturally 
feared  the  result  of  French  influence  in 
his  absence.  The  circumstances,  how- 
ever, would  not  admit  of  delay,  and  on 
the  25th  of  December  he  and  his  little 
party  of  white  men  set  out  for  home. 
The  wonder  was  that  he  ever  lived  to 
tell  the  tale  of  that  winter  journey. 
Even  the  pack-horses  broke  down  amid 
the  terrible  hardships  of  the  frozen  wil- 
derness. Washington  was  forced  to  dis- 
mount and  make  his  way  as  he  could 
through  the  hurtling  tempests  and  the 
heavy  snows.  At  last  he  and  Gist 
strapped  their  packs  on  their  backs, 
took  their  guns,  and,  leaving  the  jaded 
men  arid  beasts  to  make  their  slower 


58       Life  of  George   Washington. 

progress,  struck  bravely  into  the  ice- 
bound forests. 

Here  new  perils  awaited  them.  They 
feared  that  Indians,  incited  by  the 
French,  were  lurking  on  their  path. 
At  a  settlement  where  they  stopped, 
and  which  bore  the  inauspicious  name 
of  Murdering  Town,  they  engaged  a 
guide,  as  the  travelers  were  wholly  un- 
acquainted with  the  trackless  wilds 
through  which  they  must  pass.  Though 
he  seemed  eager  for  the  work,  "  took 
Washington's  pack  upon  his  back,"  and 
insisted  that  he  had  chosen  the  most 
direct  course,  Gist's  suspicions  were 
soon  aroused.  The  veteran  backwoods- 
man was  used  to  the  ways  of  Indians. 
He  feared  this  one  was  playing  them 
false. 

After    they  had    proceeded   a  number 


The   Young  Hope  of  Virginia.     59 

of  miles  through  the  forest,  Washing- 
ton's strength  gave  out.  Anxiety  may 
have  had  something  to  do  with  this,  for 
he  shared  his  companion's  suspicions. 
The  Indian  grew  sullen.  At  last,  when 
they  reached  an  opening  in  the  woods, 
where  he  had  contrived  to  be  some  dis- 
tance in  advance,  he  suddenly  turned 
and  fired  on  the  white  men.  His  aim, 
happily,  missed  both. 

They  were  not  altogether  unprepared. 
Gist,  accustomed  to  the  stern  vengeance 
of  the  frontier,  would  have  put  the  In- 
dian to  death  on  the  spot.  But  his 
companion,  whose  young  wrath  one 
would  suspect  would  naturally  be 
roused  to  swift  vengeance,  now  inter- 
posed to  spare  the  savage's  life,  and 
Gist  reluctantly  consented. 

The    guide    pretended    that    his    gun 


6o       Life  of  George  Washington. 

had  gone  off  by  accident.  The  travel- 
ers thought  it  the  best  policy  to  accept 
his  explanation  and  permit  him  to  de- 
part to  his  cabin.  Conscious  of  the 
peril  of  remaining  in  his  vicinity,  they 
pushed  on  through  the  long,  bitter 
night  and  the  whole  of  the  next  day, 
not  knowing  but  any  instant  the  ter- 
rible war-whoop,  the  brandished  toma- 
hawk, might  bring  them  to  bay. 

They  reached  the  Alleghany  to  find 
the  great  river  filled  with  masses  of 
drifting  ice.  A  day  was  spent  in  mak- 
ing a  rude  raft  that  would  enable  them 
to  cross.  It  was  launched  after  sunset. 
The  strong  current  swept  Washington 
off  the  logs  into  the  water.  It  seemed 
for  the  moment  that  all  was  over,  and 
that  the  brave  young  life  which  the 
savage's  aim  had  missed,  and  the  winter 


The   Young  Hope  of  Virginia.     61 

tempests  and  the  snow-bound  wilder- 
nesses had  spared,  would  be  swallowed 
up  in  the  cold,  hurrying  waters.  But 
with  a  last  effort  Washington  caught  at 
one  of  the  raft-logs,  and  barely  saved 
himself  from  drowning. 

The  raft,  partly  guided  by  their  poles, 
drifted  to  a  low  island  in  the  river, 
where  the  half-frozen  men  managed  to 
land,  and  watch  out  the  terrible  night. 
The  next  morning  they  succeeded  in 
picking  their  way  over  the  closely 
packed  ice  to  the  river-bank.  That 
night  they  reached  the  house  of  one  of 
the  frontiersmen  who  traded  with  the 
Indians.  Under  this  rude,  hospitable 
roof  their  perils  were  over. 

Two  weeks  later  Washington  laid  the 
letter  of  the  French  commander  before 
Governor  Dinwiddie.  The  great  quali- 


62        Life  of  George   Washington. 

ties  which  the  young  officer  had  dis- 
played in  this  mission,  the  coolness, 
the  sagacity,  the  consummate  tact 
with  which  he  had  dealt  with  shrewd 
Frenchman  and  wily  Indian,  the  cour- 
age with  which  he  had  carried  himself 
through  all  the  varied  perils  which  had 
beset  him,  made  a  vivid  impression 
throughout  the  province.  "  From  that 
moment,"  we  read,  "he  was  the  rising 
hope  of  Virginia." 


CHAPTER    IV. 

WINNING    HIS   SPURS. 

THE  troubles  on  the  frontier  thick- 
ened. It  was  evident  there  was  no 
way  of  settling  them  but  the  old,  hard 
one  of  battle.  Forces  were  raised  in 
the  province,  and  the  command  of  the 
little  army  was  offered  to  Washington. 
It  was  like  his  native  modesty  to  de- 
cline so  heavy  a  responsibility,  and  he 
was  accordingly  appointed  second  in 
command. 

It  would  take  long  to  tell  how  the 
mistakes,  delays,  and  obstinacies  of 
others,  on  whom  he  was  forced  to  de- 
pend, tried  his  soul  and  half-paralyzed 
his  utmost  energies.  He  could  not 


64       Life  of  George   Washington. 

know  how  all  these  vexations  and  fail- 
ures— so  hard  for  youth  to  bear — were 
training  him  for  the  great  work  which 
would  not  begin  for  him  until  he  had 
reached  the  prime  of  his  years. 

On  a  rainy  May  morning  of  the  year 
1754,  the  first  gun  was  fired  in  the 
long  struggle  for  possession  of  the  Val- 
ley of  the  Ohio.  We  all  know  that 
Washington  was  in  this  battle ;  that 
Jumonville,  the  young  French  com- 
mander, was  killed ;  we  know  that  the 
Americans  won  the  day,  and  sent  home 
twenty-one  prisoners  to  the  colony. 
This  battle  roused  all  the  instincts  of 
the  soldier.  "  I  heard  the  bullets 
whistle,"  Washington  wrote  to  his 
brother,  in  the  flush  of  that  first  vic- 
tory, "  and,  believe  me,  there  is  some- 
thing charming  in  the  sound." 


Winning  His  Spurs.  65 

This  speech  —  so  Horace  Walpole 
relates  —  was  afterward  repeated  to 
George  II.  "  He  would  not  say  so,  if 
he  had  been  used  to  hear  many,"  was 
the  king's  significant  comment. 

He,  at  least,  could  speak  from  expe- 
rience. The  second  of  the  monarchs 
whom  the  House  of  Brunswick  had 
given  to  England  had  the  passion,  the 
obstinacy,  and  the  coarseness  of  his 
race;  but  he  had  its  virtues  also;  and 
among  these  was  the  valor  he  had 
proved  on  the  great  battle-fields  of 
Oudenarde  and  Dettingen. 

Many  years  afterward,  somebody  had 
the  curiosity  to  ask  Washington  if  he  had 
ever  written  those  words  to  his  brother. 
"If  I  said  so,"  was  the  reply,  that  at 
once  explained  and  excused  a  speech 
so  unlike  himself,  "I  was  very  young." 


66       Life  of  George    Washington. 

But  that  natural  elation  over  his  first 
victory  was  followed  by  days  of  cruel 
disappointment,  severe  hardships,  and 
hopes  deferred.  The  young  commander 
had  soon  to  face  another  side  of  war 
than  that  swift  whistling  of  bullets 
which  had  roused  all  his  martial  in- 
stincts. Patience,  fortitude,  forbearance, 
were  qualities  which  he  was  called  to 
exercise  in  the  most  trying  situations. 
The  incompetency,  obstinacy,  and  jeal- 
ousy of  those  under  whom .  he  served 
were  at  the  bottom  of  his  difficulties. 
In  the  early  summer  he  found  himself 
reduced  to  extremities.  The  supplies 
failed ;  the  troops  were  starving.  Even 
the  Indians  grew  impatient  and  dis- 
gusted with  remaining  in  the  service  of 
the  white  men. 

Under    such    circumstances     the     end 


Winning  His  Spurs.  67 

could  not  fail  to  come  swiftly.  On  the 
ist  of  July,  after  a  rapid  and  toilsome 
march »  in  sultry  weather,  over  rough 
roads,  with  half- famished  troops,  Wash- 
ington drew  up  his  small  forces  on  the 
grassy  plains  of  the  Great  Meadows. 
In  the  center  of  these  stood  a  fort  pro- 
tected by  trenches  and  palisades,  and 
which  Washington,  with  a  grim  humor, 
had  named  "Fort  Necessity — because  of 
the  pinching  famine  which  had  prevailed 
during  its  construction." 

The  retreat  had  not  taken  place  an 
hour  too  soon.  A  brother-in-law  of  the 
young  Jumonville  who  had  been  shot  in 
that  memorable  skirmish  which  opened 
the  long  contest,  Captain  de  Villiers  by 
name,  was  in  pursuit  of  Washington 
with  a  large  force  of  French  and  Indians, 
eager  to  avenge  the  death  of  his  relative. 


68        Life  of  George    Washington. 

A  deserter  had  brought  the  French 
Captain  intelligence  of  Washington's  en- 
campment at  Great  Meadows,  and  of 
the  famished  condition  of  the  troops. 

Washington  mea~nwhile  had  made  the 
most  of  his  time.  He  had  endeavored 
to  enlarge  and  strengthen  Fort  Neces- 
sity. He  had  worked  with  his  men, 
sharing  their  heaviest  labors,  "  felling 
the  trees,  and  rolling  up  the  trunks  to 
form  a  breastwork."  He  must  some- 
times have  smiled  grimly  to  himself  as 
he  recalled  his  flush  of  triumph  over 
his  first  victory.  That  had  been  fol- 
lowed by  months  which  demanded  the 
exercise  of  constant  patience  and  the 
severest  self-control — months  filled  with 
harassing  cares  and  cruel  disappoint- 
ments. 

At    this  critical   juncture   a  fresh  mis- 


Winning  His  Spurs.  69 

fortune  occurred.  Most  of  his  Indian 
allies,  disheartened  by  the  near  approach 
of  an  enemy  greatly  superior  in  num- 
bers, deserted  the  white  men. 

Washington's  courage  held  out  against 
this  accumulation  of  difficulties  until  on 
the  morning  of  the  3d  of  July,  when,  as 
he  was  at  work,  with  his  half-starved 
troops,  on  the  fort,  a  sentinel  came  in, 
wounded  and  bleeding.  The  enemy  was 
at  hand  ! 

Washington  drew  up  his  men  outside 
of  the  works,  and  awaited  the  onset. 
Before  noon  there  was  sharp  firing  of 
musketry  among  the  trees  on  the  rising 
ground  that  surround  the  Great  Mead- 
ows, but  the  enemy  were  too  remote  to 
do  any  harm. 

Washington  was  on  the  alert.  He 
suspected  an  ambuscade.  He  ordered 


jo       Life  of  George   Washington. 

his  men  to  keep  their  posts,  and  not 
to  fire  a  gun  until  the  enemy  should 
come  in  sight.  The  French  still  kept 
under  cover,  while  their  musketry  rat- 
tled in  the  woods.  At  last,  Washington 
ordered  his  jaded  troops  to  fall  back 
into  the  trenches,  and  fire  whenever  the 
foe  ventured  in  sight.  In  this  way  the 
long  summer  day  was  spent  in  skirmish- 
ing between  the  two  armies.  Mean- 
while, the  rain  poured  in  torrents  into 
the  trenches.  The  troops  were  half- 
drowned  ;  many  of  the  muskets  became 
unfit  for  use. 

It  was  eight  o'clock  at  night  when 
the  French  sent  a  request  for  a  parley. 
Washington  was  at  first  reluctant  to 
grant  it  He  knew  the  wiles  of  the  foe, 
and  feared  this  was  only  a  ruse  by 
which  they  intended  to  introduce  a  spy 


Winning  His  Spurs.  71 

inside  the  fort.  But,  while  he  hesitated, 
a  second  messenger  arrived,  requesting 
that  an  officer  might  be  sent  to  treat, 
under  a  parole. 

Washington  was  forced  to  accede. 
There  was  nothing  to  be  done  now  but 
to  surrender  to  the  enemy,  who  had 
closed  in  on  his  starving  troops  with 
forces  that  it  would  be  certain  destruc- 
tion to  face  in  battle.  The  terms 
which  the  enemy  offered  were  twice  re- 
jected. The  third  time  the  paper  was 
read  by  a  flaring  candle,  in  a  fast  fall- 
ing rain,  where  the  dim  light  was  with 
difficulty  kept  from  going  out,  and,  amid 
the  blackness  of  the  short  summer  night, 
the  French  terms  were  accepted. 

The  next  morning  the  draggled  little 
army  marched  out  of  its  stronghold. 
They  went  bravely — those  half-starved 


72       Life  of  George  Washington. 

men — with  drums  beating,  and  colors 
flying,  and  all  the  honors  of  war. 
Washington  at  last  brought  the  small 
force  of  Virginia  volunteers  in  safety  to 
Wills'  Creek,  where  they  found  ample 
provisions,  which,  by  the  most  shameful 
negligence,  had  not  been  forwarded  to 
them. 

Here  Washington  left  his  troops  to 
recover  their  strength,  while  he  pro- 
ceeded to  Williamsburg  to  lay  his  mili- 
tary report  before  the  governor. 

A  little  later  the  young  captain  and 
his  officers  received  the  thanks  of  the 
House  of  Burgesses  for  their  bravery 
and  their  gallant  defense  of  their 
country. 

But,  grateful  as  this  recognition  of  his 
services  was  to  Washington,  he  knew 
that  the  old  influences  which  had  made 


Winning  His  Spurs.  73 

his  campaign  so  disastrous  were  still  at 
work,  and  that  they  would  confuse  and 
cripple  all  his  future  action. 

Matters  culminated  at  last  when  Gov- 
ernor Dinwiddie  interfered  in  delicate 
questions  of  military  rank.  Washing- 
ton's sensitive  honor  was  deeply  ag- 
grieved when  he  learned  that  his  col- 
onel's commission  would  in  future  allow 
him  neither  rank  nor  emolument.  He 
refused  to  retain  an  empty  title.  He 
immediately  resigned  his  commission 
and  returned  home. 

He  settled  at  Mount  Vernon — Law- 
rence's young  daughter  having  recently 
died — and  was  soon  absorbed  in  the  cares 
of  his  estate,  in  superintending  his  moth- 
er's affairs,  and  in  promoting  the  welfare 
of  his  young  brothers  and  sister. 

In  the  rural  life  and  work  so  dear  to 


74       Life  of  George   Washington. 

him  the  sense  of  his  late  wrongs  and 
disasters  would  have  been  gradually 
superseded  by  other  interests ;  but  the 
march  of  events  did  not  permit  him  to 
remain  long  in  that  congenial  life. 


CHAPTER    V. 
BRADDOCK'S   BATTLE-FIELD. 

IN  1778,  General  Braddock  came  out 
from  England.  He  was  a  brave  officer, 
seasoned  by  long  service,  for  he  had 
been  forty  years  in  the  Guards.  He 
was  by  temperament  and  habit  a  mar- 
tinet. His  religion  was  military  rou- 
tine. He  had  one  of  those  obstinate, 
inflexible  natures,  which  can  never 
adapt  themselves  to  new  surroundings 
and  expedients.  He  would  lead  his 
troops  to  battle  in  rude  American  wil- 
dernesses, or  to  the  wild  warfare  of  an 
Indian  ambush,  in  the  same  fashion  that 
he  would  have  paraded  them  in  St 
James's  Park.  He  could  ^not  conceive 


76       Life  of  George  Washington. 

of  carrying  on  a  campaign  in  a  new, 
unsettled  country  after  any  methods 
but  those  of  the  old  continental  battle- 
fields, with  which  he  was  so  familiar. 

Thoroughly  brave  and  honorable, 
there  was  not,  probably,  an  English 
general  at  that  time  less  fitted  to  take 
command  of  an  American  army  than 
the  one  which  England  now  sent  out 
as  Commander-in-Chief  to  her  Colonies. 

At  this  period  Washington  was,  as 
we  have  seen,  absorbed  in  the  care  of 
his  estates.  His  agricultural  tastes  were 
his  strongest  ones.  Even  in  his  youth 
they  always  contended  with  his  mili- 
tary proclivities,  and  in  later  years 
became  the  one  passion  of  his  life. 

But  now  the  booming  of  cannon 
among  the  quiet  shades  of  Mount  Ver- 
non,  the  stately  ships  of  war  on  the 


BraddotKs  Battle-field.  77 

Potomac,  the  military  stir  and  din  all 
about  him,  roused  the  temper  of  the 
soldier.  Washington  grew  eager  to  join 
Braddock's  forces  as  a  volunteer.  He 
longed  to  witness  a  brilliant  campaign, 
under  the  command  of  a  famous  gen- 
eral, with  all  the  military  equipment  of 
the  Old  World  at  his  command.  This 
desire  was  not  long  in  reaching  the 
Commander  -  in  -  Chief.  He,  probably, 
heard  on  all  sides  praises  of  the  young 
Virginia  colonel.  The  latter  was  soon 
offered  a  position  on  the  staff.  The 
acceptance  of  this  high  honor  would 
involve  considerable  expense,  while  no 
pay  was  attached  to  the  position.  But 
military  ardor  was  now  uppermost. 
Washington  became  one  of  General 
Braddock's  aids-de-camp. 

The   army  from  over    the    seas  moved 


78       Life  of  George   Washington. 

slowly  through  the  summer  weather. 
Encumbered  by  immense  baggage- 
trains,  and  all  sorts  of  superfluous  stores, 
the  troops  toiled  over  rugged  roads,  that 
had  first  to  be  broken,  through  trackless 
wildernesses.  Braddock,  true  to  himself, 
held  rigidly  to  all  the  military  rules  and 
ceremonials,  so  burdensome  and  su- 
perfluous under  such  novel  conditions. 
He  had  no  knowledge  of  the  country, 
and  no  idea  of  the  methods  of  wild  bush- 
fighting,  or  of  the  habits  of  Indian 
warfare. 

All  attempts  to  enlighten  him  proved 
worse  than  futile.  He  would  listen  to 
no  representations  from  those  familiar 
with  the  country.  Obstinate,  and  easily 
offended,  he  snubbed  all  those  who  at- 
tempted to  give  him  the  advice  of  which 
he  stood  in  such  need.  He  more  than 


Braddock's  Battle-field.  79 

once  resented  Washington's  attempts  to 
give  him  some  information  on  matters 
of  vital  importance ;  but,  during  the 
long  advance,  circumstances  so  often 
proved  the  wisdom  of  the  young  aid- 
de-camp's  advice,  that  the  general  finally 
condescended  to  act  on  it. 

Washington  was  with  the  English 
army  on  the  fatal  day  of  July  9, 
1755.  He  had  been  taken  seriously 
ill  on  the  march,  but,  though  he  suffered 
intensely,  he  had  persisted  in  keeping 
at  his  post,  until  the  general  kindly  in- 
terposed and  forbade  him  to  proceed. 

Washington  was  left  behind,  a  guard 
was  assigned  him,  and  he  was  placed 
in  the  care  of  Dr.  Craik,  the  life-long 
physician  and  friend  whose  career  and 
fame  are  so  closely  interwoven  with 
Washington's. 


8o       Life  of  George   Washington. 

Braddock's  conduct  on  this  occasion 
proves  that,  despite  all  his  obstinacy  and 
devotion  to  military  punctilio,  he  was  at 
bottom  a  kind-hearted  man. 

The  moment  when  the  young  aid- 
de-camp  watched  the  proud  little  army 
move  off  into  the  wilderness  without 
him  must  have  been  a  bitter  one.  But 
he  hoped  to  be  able  to  rejoin  the  forces 
in  a  couple  of  days.  Braddock  had 
pledged  his  word  of  honor  that  he 
should  be  allowed  to  witness  the  battle. 
So  his  eagerness  had  brought  him  in 
time  to  the  front,  almost  at  the  risk  of 
his  life. 

That  day,  which  was  to  fill  so  many 
homes  in  England  and  America  with 
mourning,  opened  fair  on  the  banks  of 
the  Monongahela.  What  a  picture  of 
life  and  color  and  movement  the  whole 


Braddoc&s  Battle-field.  81 

scene  must  have  made,  framed  by  the 
green,  ancient  woods !  The  soldiers,  we 
read,  were  marshaled  at  sunrise,  and 
seemed  arrayed  more  for  a  fete  than  a 
battle.  One  sees  it  all — the  gay  scar- 
let uniforms,  the  brown  water  glancing 
in  the  sunlight,  the  bayonets  flashing 
bright  against  the  summer  green,  as 
the  army  moved  proudly  along  to  the 
"  Grenadiers'  March  ;  "  the  colors  flying, 
the  drums  beating,  the  fifes  playing. 
It  was  a  gallant  sight — such  as  the 
New  World  had  never  witnessed.  It 
made  an  impression  on  Washington 
that  was  never  effaced.  In  after  years, 
when  he  himself  stood  at  the  head  of 
armies,  he  used  to  say  that  these  troops, 
as  they  moved  across  the  ford  and 
along  the  river  banks,  the  sunlight 
flashing  on  the  scarlet  lines  and  the 


82       Life  of  George   Washington. 

burnished  steel,  formed  the  most  beauti- 
ful sight  he  ever  beheld. 

The  Indians  lay  in  wait  along  the 
line  of  march.  These  savage  hordes 
were  to  make  that  day  one  of  the  sad- 
dest in  early  American  history.  They 
had  been  hovering  on  the  track  for 
days.  They  had  chosen  their  time  and 
place  well.  They  were  always  sure  to 
do  that. 

Suddenly,  from  behind  trees  and 
thickets,  and  in  ravines,  broke  the  ter- 
rible war-whoop.  English  soldiers  had 
never  heard  that  sound.  The  next 
moment  a  deadly  fire  burst  from  the 
forest. 

Every  schoolboy  knows  the  story  of 
Braddock's  defeat.  One  cannot  wonder 
that  it  came,  sharp  and  sudden  and  ter- 
rible, as  it  did.  Everything  had  been 


BraddocKs  Battle-field.  83 

badly  managed.  Nothing  had  been 
done  to  guard  against  a  surprise. 
There  was  no  foe  to  be  met  in  honest 
warfare ;  there  was  only  that  fearful 
yelling,  that  terrible  uproar,  to  be  heard, 
while  the  constant  firing  from  unseen 
hands  laid  low  the  flower  of  the 
army. 

Washington — just  from  his  sick-bed — 
rode  calm  and  fearless  amid  the  rain  of 
the  bullets.  No  war-whoop  could  shake 
his  trained  nerves,  no  Indian  ambus- 
cade take  him  by  surprise.  In  the 
midst  of  the  carnage — officers  and  men 
falling  thick  around  him — he  did  all 
that  man  could  to  rally  the  troops,  and 
retrieve  the  fortunes  of  the  day. 

He  was  a  splendid  mark  for  the  foe. 
Many  a  gun  in  the  forest  was  aimed 
at  him,  but  each  shot  fell  harmless  as 


84       Life  of  George   Washington. 

though  from  magic  armor.  Years  after- 
ward, Washington  met  an  old  Indian 
sachem,  who  related  the  story  of  that 
day,  and  confessed  that  he  and  his 
comrades  had  frequently  aimed  their 
guns  at  him  as  he  dashed,  a  conspicu- 
ous mark,  into  every  part  of  the  field. 
But,  when  no  shot  took  effect,  they 
gave  up  firing.  The  sachem  and  his 
band  believed  that  the  Great  Spirit 
had  given  the  young  officer  the 
charmed  life  that  could  not  be  lost 
in  battle. 

Had  the  soldiers  heeded  his  orders — 
had  they  "raked  the  ravines  with 
grape-shot" — the  day,  even  then,  might 
have  been  saved.  But  the  bravest  sol- 
diers were  paralyzed.  They  could  have 
held  their  own  against  any  foe  in  the 
field.  The  Indian  rifle  was  leveled  by 


BraddocKs  Battle-field.  85 

unseen  hands  in  the  shelter  of  the 
woods,  while  the  yells  of  demons  shook 
the  air  and  unnerved  the  soldiers.  In 
vain  "  Washington  sprang  from  his 
horse,  wheeled  and  pointed  a  field- 
piece  toward  the  woods.  His  example 
could  not  inspire  the  men  with  courage. 
Not  a  platoon  would  quit  the  line  of 
march ;  not  a  soldier  scale  the  hill  on 

the  right,  where    the    firing   was    heavi- 

»-  » 
est. 

The  end  came  at  last,  in  headlong 
flight.  At  sunset  the  broken  lines  fled 
along  the  banks  of  the  Monongahela, 
a  wreck  of  the  proud  army  that  had 
crossed  the  river  in  the  morning,  with 
drums  beating  and  banners  flying,  eager 
for  the  fray,  and  sure  of  a  swift  victory 
over  their  French  and  Indian  foe. 

On    the    battle-field    lay    hundreds    of 


86       Life  of^  George   Washington. 

the  dead  and  wounded.  The  enemy, 
busied  there  with  scalping  and  plunder, 
did  not  long  pursue  the  routed  army. 

Braddock,  like  his  officers,  had  car- 
ried himself  with  consummate  bravery 
throughout  the  dreadful  scene.  Horse 
after  horse  was  killed  under  him,  but 
he  still  remained  in  the  thick  of  the 
battle,  and  when  at  last  he  fell,  mor- 
tally wounded,  it  was  with  difficulty 
they  could  get  him  from  the  field, 
where  he  desired  to  die.  He  saw  his 
mistake  when  it  was  too  late  to  re- 
deem it.  In  the  long  retreat,  amid 
which  the  brave,  obstinate,  old  sol- 
dier was  tenderly  guarded  and  cared 
for,  he  must  have  remembered  his 
young  aid's  advice  that  he  should 
throw  out  flanking  parties,  and  be  pre- 
pared for  Indian  ambuscades.  If  he 


Braddock's  Battle-field.  87 

had   heeded   the  warning   he  would   not 
have  lost  the  day. 

General  Braddock  died  four  days 
later  at  Great  Meadows,  the  scene  of 
Washington's  surrender.  The  dying 
soldier  was  very  grateful  for  the  atten- 
tions that  soothed  his  last  hours ;  in 
proof  of  which  he  bequeathed  his  young 
aid  his  favorite  horse — a  splendid  ani- 
mal—  and  Bishop,  his  faithful  body- 
servant. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE       KNIGHT      SANS      PEUR      ET      SANS     RE- 
PROCHE. 

WASHINGTON  reached  Mount  Vernon 
before  that  disastrous  month  had  closed. 
His  health  had  suffered  greatly.  But 
his  country  could  not  leave  him  time  to 
recruit.  The  defeat  of  Braddock  had 
filled  the  province  with  consternation. 
It  had  shaken  that  old  faith  in  the  in- 
vincibility of  British  troops,  which  was 
a  part  of  the  creed  of  every  American. 
Bewildered  alarm  had  taken  the  place 
of  the  old  blind  confidence.  Less  than 
three  weeks  after  his  return,  George 
Washington  was  appointed  commander 
of  all  the  forces  in  the  colony. 


Sans  Peur  et  Sans  Reproche.       89 

His  mother  now  interposed.  She 
had  been  accustomed  to  having  her 
authority  treated  with  the  utmost  def- 
erence, and  perhaps  did  not  fully  real- 
ize that  her  son  was  now  no  longer  the 
lad  whose  naval  career  she  had  once 
checked  on  its  threshold.  Her  letters 
entreated  him — her  first-born — not  to 
risk  a  life  so  precious  in  another  of 
those  savage  frontier  battles.  But,  with 
all  his  habitual  deference  to  the  mater- 
nal wishes,  Washington  could  not,  at 
this  critical  moment,  suffer  them  to  be 
paramount  to  the  claims  of  his  country. 
And  on  the  i4th  of  September  he  re- 
paired to  Winchester,  where  he  estab- 
lished his  headquarters. 

Vexing  questions  met  him  on  the 
threshold  of  his  new  career.  Parties 
arose  and  quarrels  ensued,  on  matters 


QO       Life  of  George  Washington. 

of  rank  and  precedence,  between  the 
king's  officers  and  those  who  held 
commissions  from  the  colonial  gov- 
ernors. All  this  struck  at  the  basis  of 
his  own  authority.  Washington  at  last 
determined  to  refer  these  matters  to 
General  Shirley,  at  Boston,  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief  who  had  succeeded 
Braddock. 

The  journey,  which  began  on  Febru- 
ary 4,  1756,  forms  a  bright  little  epi- 
sode in  this  harassing  period.  Wash- 
ington was  accompanied  by  his  aid-de- 
camp and  an  officer  of  light  horse. 
They  made  the  long  winter  journey  on 
horseback,  with  servants  in  livery,  in 
the  old  Virginia  style.  The  small  party 
was  in  the  heyday  of  youth  and  hope. 
They  stopped  in  Philadelphia  and  New 
York,  and  no  doubt  the  picturesque 


Sans  Peur  et  Sans  Reproche.       91 

little  cavalcade  made  a  brilliant  impres- 
sion on  the  society  of  the  old  colonial 
cities.  For  the  first  time  Washington 
entered  New  England  and  beheld  Bos- 
ton— the  busy,  quaint,  old  commercial 
town  by  the  bay — little  dreaming  of 
the  part  he  was  yet  to  play  in  her  his- 
tory. 

The  journey  must  have  been  full  of 
novel  experiences  and  social  pleasures 
to  the  young  colonel  and  his  friends. 
To  this  period  belongs  the  story  of  his 
acquaintance  with  Miss  Mary  Philipse, 
the  beautiful  sister-in-law  of  his  friend, 
Beverly  Robinson.  He  met  the  young 
lady  on  his  return  to  New  York,  and 
there  is  no  doubt  that  her  varied 
charms  produced  a  powerful  impression 
on  his  fancy  and  heart. 

Washington    had   all  a  brave  soldier's 


92        Life  of  George    Washington. 

delight  in  the  society  of  women.  There 
was  a  great  deal  of  the  tender  chivalry 
of  the  old  knight,  "without  fear  and 
without  reproach,"  in  his  nature.  But 
his  busy  life  in  American  frontier  wil- 
dernesses had  afforded  him  little  time 
or  opportunity  for  the  indulgence  of 
any  romance.  The  presence  of  this 
elegant  woman  had  the  added  charm  of 
novelty  to  one  always  susceptible  to  the 
graces  of  her  sex.  His  admiration  was 
no  secret  to  anybody  who  saw  them 
together.  There  seems  to  be  no  doubt 
that  Mary  Philipse  —  the  New  York 
belle  of  that  winter  of  1756 — would 
have  had  another  suitor  for  her  hand 
had  Washington  remained  longer  in  the 
city.  But  at  the  critical  moment  he 
was  summoned  to  Virginia,  and,  a  little 
later,  Captain  Morris — his  aid-de-camp 


Sans  Peur  et  Sans  Reproche.       93 

in  the  Braddock  campaign — made  the 
most  of  his  time,  and  won  the  heart, 
hand,  and  fortune  of  the  young1  woman. 
Whatever  disappointment  Washington 
may  have  felt,  he  took  it  philosophi- 
cally. He  was,  at  this  time,  in  the 
midst  of  scenes  likely  to  dissipate  all 
soft  memories  and  regrets.  A  terrible 
panic  had  seized  the  country  about  him. 
The  Indians  were  ravaging  the  front- 
iers. This  meant  burning  houses  and 
slaughtering  families.  The  white  set- 
tlers were  flying  in  wild  terror  before 
them.  That  fair  Valley  of  the  Shenan- 
doah — its  pleasant  homes  wasted  by  the 
savage — was  now  one  wide  scene  of 
havoc  and  desolation.  It  seemed  on 
the  point  of  relapsing  into  the  primitive 
wilderness  from  which  civilization  and 
industry  had  rescued  it — about  to  be- 


94       Life  of  George   Washington. 

come    again    the    hunting-ground  of  the 
Indian,  the  haunt  of  the  wild  beast. 

On  his  arrival  at  Winchester,  Wash- 
ington found  the  inhabitants  frantic  with 
fear.  Every  hour  brought  its  fresh  tale 
—true  or  false — of  families  massacred, 
or  besieged  and  famishing  in  the  stock- 
aded forts,  to  which  they  had  fled  for 
shelter.  The  people  were  in  agonies  of 
terror  lest  the  savages  were  on  their 
way  to  attack  the  town.  The  helpless 
inhabitants — their  imaginations  inflamed 
by  the  belief  of  their  imminent  peril — 
lived  over  all  the  horrors  of  an  Indian 
massacre,  from  the  first  paralyzing  war- 
whoop  to  the  last  scene  of  scalped 
bodies  and  burning  homes.  In  this  ex- 
tremity they  turned  to  Washington  as 
their  ^sole  hope  and  defender.  Women 
gathered  about  him,  "holding  up  their 


Sans  Peur  et  Sans  Reproche.       95 

children,  and  imploring  him  with  tears 
and  cries  to  save  them  from  the  sav- 
ages. He  looked  around  him  on  the 
suppliant  crowd,  with  a  countenance 
beaming  with  pity,  and  a  heart  wrung 
with  anguish." 

Washington's  position,  at  this  time, 
"shut  up  in  a  frontier  town,  destitute 
of  forces,  surrounded  by  savage  foes," 
was  one  replete  with  anxiety  and  trial. 
It  might  have  shaken  the  nerves  of  a 
veteran  commander,  and  he  was  a 
young  man  of  only  twenty-four. 

But  he  acted  with  his  usual  prompt 
energy.  The  first  thing  to  be  done 
was  to  lay  the  condition  of  affairs 
before  the  governor.  His  letter  must 
have  had  something  of  the  effect  of  a 
thunderbolt,  for  Dinwiddie,  usually  so 
dilatory  and  confused  in  his  movements, 


96       Life  of  George   Washington. 

instantly  dispatched  orders  for  militia 
from  the  upper  counties  to  march  to 
Washington's  assistance.  Happily,  the 
danger  was  averted.  The  Indians  went 
away  to  their  hunting-grounds  with  cap- 
tives and  spoils,  and  Winchester  was 
spared. 

As  time  went  on,  all  sorts  of  delays, 
vexations,  and  interferences  fretted  Wash- 
ington's ardent  spirit,  and  wore  on  his 
health.  It  is  a  miserable  story,  on  the 
details  of  which  the  limits  of  this  volume 
make  it  impossible  to  dwell.  The  gov- 
ernor, narrow,  obstinate,  and  soured,  be- 
cause Washington  had  been  elevated  to 
the  command  in  preference  to  a  favorite 
of  his  own,  exercised  a  petty  tyranny 
over  all  the  young  officer's  movements. 
The  latter  often  found  his  suggestions 
unheeded  or  imperfectly  carried  out. 


Sans  Peur  et  Sans  Reproche.       97 

His  statements  met  with  indefinite  and 
ambiguous  replies.  Nothing  could  have 
been  more  irritating  to  a  mind  of 
George  Washington's  clear,  practical 
quality  than  the  lax,  confused  methods 
of  his  superior. 

The  unpleasant  relations  which  con- 
tinued to  exist  between  the  two  were, 
no  doubt,  aggravated  by  the  governor's 
character,  which  was  one  singularly  lia- 
ble to  relapse  into  doubt  and  indecision 
at  critical  moments.  He  was  easily 
offended,  too ;  impatient  of  contradiction, 
he  was  even  absurd  enough  to  make 
complaints  regarding  the  manner  of  his 
subordinate's  correspondence.  A  little 
Scottish  faction,  intent  on  disgusting 
Washington,  so  that  he  would  resign 
and  make  room  for  his  rival,  added 
fresh  fuel  to  the  governor's  hostility. 


98        Life  of  George   Washington. 

It  was  in  defiance  of  all  the  young 
colonel's  remonstrances  that  Dinwiddie 
insisted  on  making  headquarters  at  Fort 
Cumberland,  and,  to  strengthen  this  post, 
he  ordered  a  withdrawal  of  the  necessary 
troop%  and  supplies  from  other  forts  and 
from  Winchester.  By  this  unwise  move- 
ment he  weakened  the  defenses  of  the 
frontier,  and  threw  military  affairs  into 
infinite  confusion,  besides  incurring  enor- 
mous losses  and  expenses. 

All  these  things  must  have  made  that 
year's  service  a  bitter  one  to  George 
Washington.  He  had  the  ardent  spirit 
of  his  years,  for  they  were,  as  we  have 
seen,  only  twenty-four.  He  had  the 
fiery  temper  of  his  race.  He  could  not 
look  into  the  future  and  see  how  all 
these  vexations  and  trials  were  training 
him  in  the  long  patience,  the  varied  re- 


Sans  Peur  et  Sans  Reproche.       99 

sources,  the  steady  courage  with  which 
he  was  yet  to  play  his  part  on  the 
world's  stage — a  part  the  greatest  that 
had  ever  yet  fallen  to  man. 

But  the  year,  that  must  have  seemed 
so  long  in  passing,  was  now  drawing 
to  a  close.  Frequent  illnesses  warned 
Washington  that  incessant  care  and 
anxiety  were  undermining  his  health. 
He  struggled  on  for  awhile ;  but  the 
increasing  violence  of  his  attacks  forced 
him  to  yield  at  last  to  the  urgent  solici- 
tations of  his  friend,  the  army  surgeon, 
Dr.  Craik.  Washington  once  more  re- 
signed his  post  and  retired  to  Mount 
Vernon. 

Governor  Dinwiddie's  administration 
came  to  a  close  with  the  opening  of  the 
new  year,  and  he  returned  to  England. 

For  some   months   after  Washington's 


roo     Life  of  George   Washington. 

return  to  Mount  Vernon,  the  condition 
of  his  health  seriously  alarmed  his 
friends.  But  the  splendid  forces  of  his 
constitution  at  last  rallied,  and  tided 
him  over  the  danger.  He  did  not, 
however,  resume  his  command  at  Win- 
chester until  the  following  April.  He 
did  so  under  brightening  auspices.  The 
new  governor  had  not  arrived  from 
England,  but  his  representative  appreci- 
ated Washington's  character  and  serv- 
ices, and  was  ready  to  aid  him  in  all 
his  plans. 

Of  more  importance  than  all  else, 
William  Pitt  was  now  at  the  head  of 
the  British  Cabinet.  The  American  cam- 
paign felt  at  once  the  inspiration  of 
his  genius.  Parliament  had  resolved  to 
carry  on  the  war  in  the  colonies  with 
new  vigor.  Large  supplies  were  to  be 


Sans  Peur  et  Sans  Reproche.     101 

forwarded  from  England.  The  old  ques- 
tion of  rank  between  the  king's  and 
the  provincial  officers,  which  had  been 
the  occasion  of  so  much  bitter  feeling, 
was,  by  Pitt's  wisdom  and  tact,  happily 
settled. 

This  must  have  been  a  source  of 
great  satisfaction  to  Washington.  The 
year  before  he  had  made  that  long 
winter's  journey  to  Boston  in  the  hope 
of  obtaining  a  king's  commission.  He 
had  been  disappointed.  Before  he  re- 
turned to  Mount  Vernon  he  had  made 
a  last  fruitless  effort  for  the  prize  his 
services  had  so  richly  earned,  and  which 
would  have  established  his  authority  on 
a  secure  basis.  It  is  a  curious  fact, 
however,  that  George  Washington  was 
destined  never  to  hold  a  king's  com- 
mission. 


IO2     Life  of  George   Washington. 

The  young  commander  gathered  his 
scattered  forces  at  Winchester  and  dili- 
gently disciplined  the  recruits.  They 
were  about  nine  hundred  strong.  They 
were  destitute  of  nearly  all  the  equip- 
ment necessary  for  an  army.  His  let- 
ters to  his  superiors  made  forcible  rep- 
resentations of  the  condition  of  the  Vir- 
ginia troops,  but  without  producing  the 
desired  effect.  He  at  last,  however,  re- 
ceived orders  to  repair  to  Williamsburg 
and  lay  the  case  in  person  before  the 
Council. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

LOVER   AND.  SOLDIER. 

WASHINGTON,  with  his  habitual  prompt- 
ness, started  for  the  old  county-town  of 
Williamsburg.  Bishop,  the  long-trained 
military  servant  who  had  been  the  dying 
bequest  of  General  Braddock,  accom- 
panied his  master. 

How  little  the  young  officer,  bur- 
dened with  military  cares  and  responsi- 
bilities, dreamed  that  the  journey  from 
Winchester  to  Williamsburg  was  to  be 
the  most  eventful  of  his  life  !  The 
story  of  that  day  sheds  over  those 
stern  times  a  sudden  glow  of  romance. 
It  broke  across  Washington's  life  in 
the  most  undreamed-of  way,  when  the 


IO4     Life  of  George   Washington. 

soldier's  heart  and  brain  were  absorbed 
in  thoughts  and  cares  for  his  country. 
But  that  brief  interlude  of  romance  was 
to  make  the  joy  and  content  of  all  the 
years  to  come. 

Washington  had  crossed  the  Pamun- 
key — a  small  branch  of  the  York  River 
—and  was  spurring  his  horse  ahead, 
when  he  was  accosted  by  Mr.  Chamber- 
layne,  the  proprietor  of  the  grounds  on 
which  he  had  landed,  who  now  insisted 
on  his  stopping  to  dinner.  Washington 
declined,  feeling  it  impossible  to  spare 
the  precious  moments.  But  the  other 
would  take  no  refusal.  There  was  com- 
pany at  the  house  that  day,  among 
whom  was  the  beautiful  young  widow, 
Martha  Parke  Custis,  of  whose  charms 
Washington  could  not  have  failed  to 
hear,  though  there  seems  to  be  no 


Lover  and  Soldier.  105 

record  of  his  having  met  her  before. 
Mr.  Chamberlayne  announced  the  pres- 
ence of  the  lady  as  a  fresh  inducement 
for  Washington  to  pause.  It  is  likely 
that  this  fact  turned  the  scale,  for  the 
latter  at  last  consented  to  dismount, 
and,  a  little  later,  the  host  had  the 
pleasure  of  introducing  the  young  officer 
to  the  guests  assembled  under  the  hos- 
pitable roof. 

The  young  widow  whom  he  met  at 
the  gay  little  dinner  party,  must  have 
been  very  charming  at  that  period. 
We  all  know  what  a  beautiful  old 
woman  she  made.  She  was  about  three 
months  younger  than  Washington,  who 
was  now  twenty-six.  Her  figure  was 
small  and  graceful.  Her  eyes  and  hair 
were  of  dark  hazel.  The  world  is 
familiar  with  that  delicate,  refined, 


106     Life  of  George   Washington. 

womanly  face.  It  is  precisely  the  sort 
of  one  we  could  imagine  looking  down 
on  us  from  amid  a  gallery  of  ancient 
portraits,  with  bearded  knights  and  fair 
women,  in  some  old  English  castle. 
Mrs.  Custis,  like  Washington,  had  come 
of  one  of  the  ancient  families  of  the 
proud  old  colony.  She  had,  like  him, 
moved  in  its  highest  social  life,  and 
been  nurtured  amid  its  habits  and  tra- 
ditions. 

The  young  widow  had  been  left 
with  a  large  fortune,  which  she  shared 
with  her  two  children — a  boy  and 
girl. 

Washington's  heart  —  so  the  story 
runs — was  taken  by  surprise.  With  the 
bright  hazel  eyes  shining  upon  him,  the 
dinner  hour  passed  like  a  happy  dream. 
With  all  his  gallant  feeling  for  woman, 


Lover  and  Soldier.  107 

his  bearing  toward  her  was,  like  him- 
self, serious  and  dignified.  Perhaps  it 
never  lost  a  touch  of  the  ceremonious 
formality  in  which  he  had  been  reared. 
Yet  his  handsome  presence  and  his 
grave,  courteous  manner  must  have 
had  a  great  attraction  for  the  women 
whose  charmed  circle  he  occasionally 
entered. 

Bishop,  with  his  long  training  under 
General  Braddock,  was  not  likely  to 
fail  in  punctuality.  He  was  at  the  door 
with  the  horses  on  the  moment.  But 
for  once  their  owner  "loitered  in  the 
path  of  duty."  Nothing  affords  stronger 
evidence  of  the  impression  that  Martha 
Custis  had  made  on  George  Washing- 
ton, than  the  fact  that  the  remainder  of 
the  day  was  passed  in  her  society.  The 
restive  horses  pawed  in  vain  at  the 


io8     Life  of  George   Washington. 

door.  Washington  had  resolved  to  ride 
during  the  night  to  make  up  for  the 
lost  hours.  But  the  soft  spell  that  held 
him  was  too  powerful  to  be  broken. 
At  last  the  order  to  depart  was  counter- 
manded. Bishop  must  have  been  im- 
mensely astonished  as  he  led  the  horses 
back  to  their  stalls.  His  master  spent 
the  night  under  Mr.  Chamberlayne's 
roof.  The  next  morning  Washington 
once  more  started  for  Williamsburg. 

But  the  brave  heart  had  never  beat 
so  high,  and  softer  moods  must  have 
mingled  with  the  young  soldier's 
thoughts  of  camp  and  battle-field,  as  he 
spurred  along  the  ancient  Virginia  turn- 
pikes. That  halt  for  dinner  had  been 
his  fate. 

The  remainder  of  the  story  must  be 
told  briefly.  The  young  commander, 


Lover  and  Soldier.  109 

who  had  won  his  laurels  so  early,  and 
whose  praise  was  on  many  lips,  had 
made  a  deep  impression  on  the  woman 
he  was  so  eager  to  win.  Fortune,  in 
this  instance,  was  kind  to  him.  Mrs. 
Custis's  home  was  in  the  vicinity  of 
Williamsburg.  Washington  must  have 
met  her  frequently  during  the  brief  stay 
that  military  affairs  permitted  him.  In 
their  case  nothing  ruffled  the  course  of 
true  love.  The  crowding  war  duties 
that  summoned  him  back  to  Winchester 
allowed  brief  time  for  courtship.  He 
had  a  lover's  fear  lest,  in  his  absence, 
another  should  supplant  him,  and  win 
the  prize  he  coveted.  Matters  appear 
to  have  been  arranged  with  a  kind  of 
soldier-like  promptness  and  decision  be- 
tween the  pair.  At  all  events  the  suitor 
was  successful.  Before  he  left  Will- 


no     Life  of  George   Washington. 

iamsburg,  Martha  Custis  had  promised 
George  Washington  she  would  be  his 
wife,  and  it  was  settled  that  their  mar- 
riage should  take  place  at  the  close  of 
the  campaign. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

MARRIAGE  AND  MOUNT  VERNON. 

THE  old  familiar  specters  met  Wash- 
ington on  his  return  to  Winchester. 
An  idle  camp  had  produced  its  inevi- 
table results.  The  troops  had  grown 
restless  and  wearied  with  the  service. 
The  neighborhood  in  which  they  were 
quartered,  was  offended  by  the  frequent 
disturbances  of  the  soldiers,  and  tired  of 
the  burden  which  their  presence  in- 
volved. At  last  Washington  received 
the  welcome  order  to  break  up  camp 
and  repair  to  Fort  Cumberland. 

One  event,  however,  greatly  lightened 
the  trials 'of  this  summer.  Washington 
was  now  no  longer  the  ardent  young 


H2      Life  of  George   Washington. 

soldier  whose  heart  had  bounded  at  the 
whistling  of  the  bullets,  military  ambi- 
tions had  ceased  to  influence  him.  He 
was  looking  forward  eagerly  to  the 
close  of  the  campaign,  when  he  would 
resign  his  command  and  settle  down  at 
Mount  Vernon  with  the  woman  of  his 
choice. 

With  this  purpose  in  view,  he  had 
become  a  candidate  for  election  to  the 
House  of  Burgesses.  When  the  election 
came  off  at  Williamsburg,  his  presence 
there  was  regarded  by  his  friends  as 
all-important  for  his  political  interests. 
But  it  was  characteristic  that  he  would 
not  leave  his  command,  even  for  a  brief 
time,  and  though  he  had  received  leave 
of  absence. 

He  had,  too,  during  the  encampment 
at  Winchester,  enforced  martial  law 


Marriage  and  Mount   Vernon.    1 1 3 

with  a  good  deal  of  rigor.  His  severity 
had  sometimes  endangered  his  popular- 
ity. Several  other  candidates  were  in 
the  field.  But  the  electors  of  Frederick 
County,  by  a  large  majority,  chose 
George  Washington  for  their  represent- 
ative. 

The  summer  wore  to  its  close. 
Washington,  with  his  sickly,  disheart- 
ened troops,  was  chafing  in  his  camp  at 
Fort  Cumberland.  He  must  often  have 
asked  himself,  in  bitterness  of  soul,  if 
this  was  the  brilliant  campaign  which 
had  lured  him  from  Mount  Vernon,  with 
the  stately  ships  of  war  moving  slowly 
along  the  Potomac,  and  the  cannon 
booming  among  the  peaceful  groves ! 

A  lover's  impatience  was  now  added 
to  the  man's  longings  to  resign  his 
commission  and  return  to  private  life. 


U4     Life  of  George    Washington. 

The  soldier  in  him  had  had  its  brief 
day.  With  his  nature  and  character,  his 
delight  in  war  would  be  certain  to  be  a 
part  only  of  his  proud,  aspiring  youth. 
All  his  hopes  and  ambitions,  as  we 
have  seen,  centered  now  about  the 
home  to  which  he  was  looking  forward 
with  such  passionate  longings,  and 
which  must  have  grown  doubly  dear  to 
him,  when  he  thought  of  the  beautiful 
woman  who  would  one  day  be  its  mis- 
tress. 

Meanwhile,  in  opposition  to  all  his 
remonstrances,  a  military  road  was  be- 
ing toilsomely  opened  through  the  heart 
of  Pennsylvania,  from  Raystown  to  Fort 
Duquesne.  Sixteen  hundred  men  were 
employed  on  this  needless  work,  while 
vast  expenses  were  incurred  in  its  pros- 
ecution. But  the  British  officers  had 


Marriage  and  Mount   Vcrnon.     115 

conceived    a    terrible    idea    of    the    old 

< 

"  Braddock  Road,"  and  the  Pennsyl- 
vania traders,  who  had  their  own  inter- 
ests to  serve,  threw  all  their  influence 
in  favor  of  a  new  route  through  the 
province. 

It  must  have  been  a  happy  day  for 
Washington  when  he  received  orders  to 
break  up  the  camp  at  Fort  Cumberland 
and  move  with  his  forces  to  Raystown, 
where  the  British  Army  was  assembled 
under  the  command  of  General  Forbes. 
The  young  Virginia  colonel  met  with 
a  most  courteous  reception,  and  found 
that  his  opinions  had  great  weight  with 
the  Commander-in-Chief,  both  in  private 
and  in  war  councils. 

Notwithstanding  the  vast  bodies  of 
men  engaged  during  the  summer  in 
opening  the  road,  they  had  only  ad- 


n6     Life  of  George   Washington. 

vanced  forty-five  miles.  Fifty  more 
through  the  primeval  wilderness  had 
yet  to  be  penetrated  before  Duquesne 
would  be  reached.  Meanwhile,  a  mili- 
tary post  had  been  established  at  Loyal- 
hanna  by  Colonel  Bouquet.  With  a 
body  of  nearly  two  thousand  men  under 
his  command,  he  was  tempted  to  dis- 
patch eight  hundred  into  the  enemy's 
country.  An  enterprise  of  this  kind 
naturally  possessed  a  strong  attraction 
for  the  soldiers.  Washington,  familiar 
with  the  ground  and  the  foe,  used 
all  his  influence  to  defeat  the  expe- 
dition ;  but  it  was  in  vain.  The  idea 
of  a  dashing  military  exploit  seized  the 
imagination  of  the  officers ;  and,  having 
learned  nothing  from  the  terrible  les- 
sons of  past  Indian  warfare,  Major 
Grant  set  off  into  the  wilderness  at  the 


Marriage  and  Mount   Vernon.     117 

head  of  eight  hundred  picked  soldiers. 
A  part  of  this  force  was  composed  of 
Washington's  Virginia  regiment,  "  sent 
forward  by  him  from  Cumberland,  under 
Major  Lewis." 

It  was  the  old  story  of  Braddock's 
defeat — on  a  smaller  scale  this  time. 
Former  experience  had  not  made  Major 
Grant  wiser  or  more  wary.  With  fool- 
hardy recklessness  he  led  his  troops 
into  the  enemy's  land.  Again  the  sol- 
diers found  themselves  in  the  fatal  am- 
bush ;  again  the  dreadful  war-whoop 
filled  the  air.  A  fearful  scene  of  rout 
and  carnage  followed.  Fifty  Virginians, 
familiar  with  Indian  habits  of  fighting, 
were,  happily,  on  the  ground.  They  had 
been  placed  in  charge  of  the  baggage. 
They  came  now,  under  Captain  Bullitt, 
to  the  rescue.  The  little  company 


1 1 8     Life  of  George   Washington. 

formed  a  barricade  with  the  wagons, 
rallied  a  part  of  the  panic-stricken  sol- 
diers, gave  a  brief  check  to  the  enemy, 
gathered  the  fugitives,  and  made  a 
rapid  retreat.  Grant  and  Lewis  barely 
succeeded  in  saving  their  lives  by  sur- 
render to  a  French  officer. 

Washington,  at  Raystown,  learned  the 
sad  story  which  so  amply  justified  his 
opposition  to  the  enterprise.  Bitterly 
as  he  must  have  felt  the  defeat,  it  could 
hardly  have  taken  him  by  surprise. 
His  old  faith  in  the  invincibility  of  Brit- 
ish troops  had,  as  we  have  seen,  long 
since  disappeared.  The  laurels  those 
seasoned  veterans  had  won  on  Conti- 
nental battle-fields  were  doomed  to 
wither  fatally  in  American  wildernesses 
and  amid  Indian  ambuscades. 

But  the  defeat  only  won   fresh  honors 


Marr^ag^  and  Mount   Vernon.     119 

for  the  Virginia  troops,  who  had  so 
bravely  brought  off  the  detachment  at 
the  critical  moment.  It  must  have  been 
a  proud  day  for  their  Colonel,  when 
they  received  the  public  compliments  of 
the  British  General.  A  little  later  Cap- 
tain Bullitt  was  honored  with  a  major's 
commission.  The  regular  army  was  at 
last  forced  to  acknowledge  the  valor  of 
those  provincial  troops  whom  they  had 
so  long  regarded  with  undisguised  con- 
tempt. 

Washington  received  fresh  honors. 
He  had  now  the  command  of  a  division 
"partly  composed  of  his  own  men, 
which  was  to  keep  in  advance  of  the 
main  body,  clear  the  roads,  throw  out 
scouting  parties,  and  repel  Indian  at- 
tacks." 

On  the    5th   of  November  the  whole 


I2O     Life  of  George   Washington. 

army  was  at  last  assembled  at  Loyal- 
hanna.  With  the  winter*  close  at 
hand,  with  fifty  miles  to  traverse 
through  the  wilderness,  it  seemed  that 
Washington's  predictions  were  again  to 
be  fulfilled,  and  that  another  year's 
campaign  was  about  to  be  brought  to 
an  ignoble  close. 

A  council  of  war  was  held.  It  was 
decided  that  a  further  advance  that 
season  was  impossible.  At  this  criti- 
cal moment,  however,  three  prisoners 
were  brought  into  camp.  Their  report 
of  the  condition  of  affairs  at  Fort  Du- 
quesne,  of  the  desertion  of  the  Indians, 
of  the  garrison,  without  hope  of  re-en- 
forcements or  supplies,  fired  the  flag- 
ging courage  of  the  council.  It  was  at 
last  res'olved  to  push  forward.  The 
march  was  .again  resumed,  and  this 


Marriage  and  Mount   Vernon.     121 

time,  tardily  taught  by  experience, 
"without  tents  or  baggage,  and  with 
only  a  light  train  of  artillery." 

Washington  still  kept  the  advance. 
The  road  beyond  Loyalhanna,  strewn 
with  human  bones,  afforded  an  eloquent 
commentary  on  the  late  methods  of  In- 
dian warfare.  That  sad  spectacle  must 
have  silenced  the  last  voice  that  had 
been  raised  in  opposition  to  Washing- 
ton. But  the  army  kept  on  unmolested 
in  its  mournful  march  through  the  No- 
vember wilderness.  The  fifty  miles  were 
at  last  traversed,  and  Fort  Duquesne 
rose  in  sight. 

The  army  now  advanced  with  every 
precaution.  They  anticipated  a  resolute 
defense ;  but  they  were  disappointed. 
The  French  fort,  so  long  the  terror  of 
the  frontier,  the  object  of  so  many 


122      Life  of  George   Washington. 

hopes  and  fears,  and  for  which  so  much 
precious  blood  had  been  spilled,  was 
doomed  to  fall  at  last  without  a  blow ! 

An  hour  came  which  must  have 
seemed  to  reward  Washington  for  all 
the  wrongs,  toils,  and  perils  he  had 
undergone.  On  November  25,  1758,  he 
marched  with  the  advanced  guard  into 
Fort  Duquesne,  and  planted  the  English 
colors  where  the  French  had  waved  so 
long.  The  enemy  had  departed  the 
night  before.  They  were  reduced  to 
extremities.  No  re-enforcements  had  ap- 
peared. The  foe  was  within  a  day's 
march.  "The  French  commander  em- 
barked his  troops  at  night  in  bateaux, 
blew  up  his  magazines,  set  fire  to  the 
fort,  and  retreated  down  the  river  by 
the  light  of  the  flames." 

This  closed  the  long  struggle  between 


Marriage  and  Mount   Vernon.     123 

the  French  and  English  races  for  pos- 
session of  the  land  beyond  the  Allegha- 
nies.  To-day,  the  busy,  crowded  city  of 
Pittsburg  stands  on  the  old  site  of 
Fort  Duquesne,  and  on  the  very  spot 
where  the  checkered  military  career  of 
George  Washington  seemed  to  have 
closed  forever  in  victory. 

At  the  end  of  that  year  Washington 
resigned  his  commission,  and  retired 
from  the  service.  His  health  had  been 
shaken  by  anxieties  and  hardships  ; 
but  he  had  seen  the  grand  object  of 
long,  struggling  years  attained.  The 
"  Old  French  War "  was  ended.  Pros- 
perity once  more  smiled  upon  his  native 
province.  The  Indians  at  last  sub- 
mitted to  their  conquerors,  and  a  treaty 
of  peace  had  been  concluded  with  all  the 
tribes  between  the  Ohio  and  the  lakes. 


124      Life  of  George   Washington. 

Tidings  of  that  victory  must  have 
thrilled  the  whole  land.  The  old  haunt- 
ing terror  had  disappeared.  There  was 
a  flash  of  joy  on  every  face.  The  name 
of  George  Washington  was  to  be  for- 
ever associated  with  the  hour  of  deliv- 
erance and  thanksgiving. 

He  must  have  turned  his  back  on 
the  scenes  of  his  late  warfare  with  a 
heart  full  of  unutterable  gladness  and 
gratitude.  Mount  Vernon  was  awaiting 
him.  The  fair  face  of  the  woman  he 
was  to  wed,  would  welcome  the  victor 
with  smiles.  In  her  society,  and  amid 
the  rest  and  quiet  of  his  home,  his 
health  would  rally  again.  The  outlook 
must  have  been  very  fair  to  George 
Washington  in  those  closing  winter 
days  of  1758. 

On  the  1 6th  of  the  following  January, 


Marriage  and  Mount   Vernon.     125 

he  and  Martha  Custis  were  married  at 
the  White  House,  near  Williamsburg, 
the  residence  of  the  bride.  The  wed- 
ding was  celebrated  with  all  the  gayety 
and  lavish  hospitality  of  the  old  colonial 
time,  and  its  traditions  floated  down  to 
later  generations. 

The  three  months  that  followed  were 
spent  by  the  newly-married  pair  in  the 
bride's  home,  after  which  they  repaired 
to  Mount  Vernon.  Before  they  left 
Williamsburg,  Washington  had  taken  his 
seat  in  the  House  of  Burgesses.  An 
amusing  little  incident  occurred  on  his 
installation.  The  members  had  secretly 
agreed  that  the  young  Colonel  should 
be  received  among  them  with  a  signal 
mark  of  respect. 

When  he  took  his  seat  for  the  first 
time,  the  Speaker,  who  was  a  personal 


126      Life  of  George   Washington. 

friend  of  the  new  member,  thanked  him 
on  behalf  of  the  colony,  in  some  glow- 
ing periods,  for  the  splendid  services 
which  he  had  rendered  his  country. 

Washington  was  quite  overcome  by 
this  unexpected  honor.  He  rose  to  re- 
ply; but  the  courage  that  had  carried 
him  undaunted  through  the  storm  of  the 
bullets,  the  nerves  that  had  held  them- 
selves calm  amid  the  yells  of  the  Indian 
ambuscade,  failed  the  young  hero  now. 
He  stood  blushing,  stammering,  trem- 
bling before  the  House,  and  could  not 
utter  a  word. 

The  Speaker  came  gracefully  to  his 
aid.  "  Sit  down,  Mr.  Washington,"  he 
said.  "  Your  modesty  equals  your 
valor,  and  that  surpasses  the  power  of 
any  language  I  possess." 

This  little  scene    has  a  peculiar  inter- 


Marriage  and  Mottnt   Vcrnon.     127 

est,  because  it  forms  Washington's  in- 
troduction to  civil  life.  We  can  imagine 

o 

the  pride  and  amusement  with  which 
his  newly  wedded  wife  must  have  list- 
ened, a  little  later,  to  the  story. 

George  Washington  spent  the  next 
sixteen  years  at  Mount  Vernon.  He 
now  settled  himself  down  to  his  place 
in  life,  and  to  fulfill,  with  his  native 
conscientious  thoroughness,  the  varied 
duties  and  responsibilities  of  a  large 
landed  proprietor. 

The  domain  which  he  had  inherited 
stretched  fair  and  ample  about  him, 
with  its  noble  groves,  its  vast  wood- 
lands— haunts  of  deer  and  foxes  and 
wild  game — its  fields,  ripening  through 
the  long  summer  into  splendid  harvests. 
The  borders  ot  the  estate  were  washed 
by  more  than  ten  miles  of  tide-water. 


128      Life  of  George    Washington. 

The  mansion  stood  on  a  height  which 
commanded  a  magnificent  view  up  and 
down  the  Potomac,  and  the  grounds 
were  laid  out  in  the  English  fashion  of 
those  days.  Here  Washington  lived  his 
hospitable,  busy,  happy  life.  It  does 
not  seem  possible  that  any  man  during 
the  last  century  could  have  had  sixteen 
years  of  pleasanter  existence  than  those 
which  fell  to  the  proprietor  of  Mount 
Vernon.  He  had,  of  course,  the  super- 
intendence of  a  large  estate,  and  the 
inevitable  cares  and  responsibilities 
which  that  involved.  But  the  work  was 
thoroughly  congenial,  and  the  burden 
lay  lightly  on  that  strong,  energetic 
manhood.  Business,  too,  was  varied 
with  pleasure — with  visits  to  Annapolis, 
the  gay  little  seat  of  the  Maryland  gov- 
ernment ;  with  dinners  at  home  and 


Marriage  and  Mount   Vernon.    129 

among  the  neighboring  gentry.  Wash- 
ington's social  instincts  were  strong. 
He  was  the  most  hospitable  of  hosts. 
His  own  personal  tastes  and  habits 
were  simple,  but  his  position  demanded, 
and  his  fortune  justified,  an  ample  and 
generous  style  of  living.  The  old  colo- 
nial society  in  which  he  moved,  reflected 
a  good  deal  of  the  ceremony,  the  pomp, 
the  stately  grace  of  the  Old  World. 
Washington's  long  intimacy  with  the 
Fairfaxes,  his  intercourse  with  British 
officers,  must  have  had  its  influence 
upon  his  tastes.  Mrs.  Washington,  no 
doubt,  indulged  her  own.  She  had 
brought  an  ample  fortune  to  Mount 
Vernon.  She  would  naturally  desire  to 
live  in  a  style  befitting  its  mistress. 
Nobody  familiar  with  her  picture,  and 
skillful  at  reading  faces,  can  doubt  that 


130     Life  of  George   Washington. 

she  would  enjoy  the  refinements  and 
elegancies  of  life.  Though  her  husband 
always  appeared  on  horseback,  she  had 
her  chariot  and  postilions  in  livery  for 
her  own  use  and  for  her  guests. 

Washington  carried  some  of  the  old 
military  habits  into  his  home  life.  He 
rose  early,  and  his  simple  breakfast  of 
tea  and  Indian  cakes  could  not  have 
occupied  many  minutes.  When  the 
meal  was  over,  he  mounted  his  horse 
and  rode  over  his  estate,  giving  the 
most  careful  attention  to  its  varied 
management,  and  taking  part  in  the 
manual  labor  whenever  that  was  neces- 
sary. He  kept  his  own  accounts,  and 
balanced  his  books  with  the  same  ex- 
actness with  which  he  had  drawn  up 
the  social  codes  of  his  boyhood,  and  the 
surveyor's  charts  of  his  youth.  If  he 


Marriage  and  Mount   Vernon.    131 

was  a  kind,  he  must  have  been  also  an 
exacting,  master.  Shiftless  ways,  care- 
less work,  would  never  long  escape  the 
keen,  all-observant  eyes;  and,  where  the 
offense  was  voluntary,  would  be  likely 
to  meet  with  small  indulgence.  But 
nobody  who  had  dealings  with  the  pro- 
prietor of  Mount  Vernon  ever  had  cause 
to  question  that  high  sense  of  justice 
which  governed  him  in  each  relation  of 
life. 

When  the  hunting  season  came  on, 
Washington's  old  passion  for  the  chase 
was  sure  to  revive.  He  was  out  sev- 
eral times  each  week  with  his  neigh- 
bors and  his  hounds.  The  woods  re- 
sounded with  the  shouts  of  the  riders 
and  the  baying  of  the  dogs.  The  hunt 
was  followed  by  a  grand  dinner-party 
at  some  residence  in  the  neighborhood. 


132     Life  of  George   Washington. 

Washington  enjoyed  a  day  like  this  im- 
mensely. It  always  brought  out  the 
social  and  jovial  side  of  his  character. 

The  Potomac  also  afforded  him  vast 
enjoyment,  with  the  fishing  in  its  waters 
and  the  hunting  on  its  borders.  There 
were  seasons  when  the  herring  came 
up  the  river  in  vast  shoals,  and  the 
servants  mustered  on  the  banks  to 
draw  in  the  seine,  which  must  have 
been  accomplished  with  much  labor  and 
fun.  Then  there  were  canvas-back 
ducks  to  be  found  among  the  reeds 
and  bushes  along  the  banks  of  the 
noble  river. 

As  one  dwells  on  the  picture  of  those 
fair  surroundings,  of  the  happy,  varied 
in-door  and  out-door  life  at  Mount  Ver- 
non,  it  seems  a  good  deal  like  reading 
some  idyl  of  the  poets. 


Marriage  and  Mount   Vernon.    133 

To  crown  all  the  rest,  Washington's 
domestic  life  was  a  very  happy  one. 
The  wife  he  had  chosen  appears  to 
have  been  remarkably  adapted  to  a 
man  of  his  tastes  and  temperament. 
The  name  of  Martha  Washington  is 
dear  to  Americans.  Had  it  not  been 
for  the  long  seven  years'  trial  of  the 
Revolution,  the  world  would  never  have 
known  what  sort  of  woman  reigned 
amid  the  elegant  seclusion  of  Mount 
Vernon.  She  who,  when  the  time  came, 
left,  uncomplainingly,  that  home  of 
grace  and  ease,  to  endure  the  priva- 
tions and  hardships  of  the  camp  at 
Morristown  and  the  terrible  winter  at 
Valley  Forge,  proved  herself  worthy  of 
the  immortal  name  she  bears,  and  de- 
serves her  place  in  the  grateful  memory 
of  a  nation. 


134     Life  of  George    Washington. 

Those  sixteen  years  have  been  truly 
called  "  the  halcyon  season  of  Washing- 
ton's life."  The  busy,  dignified,  gracious 
master  of  Mount  Vernon  was  not  much 
given  to  poetic  fancies.  Yet  it  would 
not  have  been  strange  if,  during  those 
smooth,  prosperous  years,  he  had  some- 
times wondered  what  there  was  left  to 
ask,  had  the  ancient  fable  come  true 
again,  and  the  Fates  brought  to  his 
door  all  honors  and  all  fortunes  for  his 
choosing. 

He  may,  it  is  true,  have  felt  a  regret 
that  no  children  came  to  bear  his  name 
and  prattle  about  his  knee ;  but  he 
showed  for  his  wife's  boy  and  girl  the 
interest  and  tenderness  of  a  father. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

ENGLAND    AND    AMERICA. 

IT  was  impossible  for  a  man  like 
George  Washington  to  be  absorbed  in 
interests  and  affections  that  were  wholly 
personal.  All  the  great  questions  which 
at  that  time  were  agitating  Europe,  and, 
more  especially,  the  legislation  of  the 
mother  country,  her  domestic  and  colo- 
nial policy,  must  have  been  charged 
with  vital  interest  for  him.  The  great 
statesmen  of  the  England  of  his  day — 
the  ministers  who  made  her  government 
and  shaped  her  history,  during  the  mid- 
dle of  the  century — must  have  been  fre- 
quent subjects  of  discussion  when  the 
host  and  his  guests  rode  over  the 


136     Life  of  George   Washington. 

grounds  or   sat    at    the  hospitable  board 
of  Mount  Vernon. 

Washington  had  been,  like  all  the 
Virginia  colonists,  brought  up  in  an 
atmosphere  of  intense  loyalty  to  the 
mother  country.  England  was  home  to 
them.  They  were  proud  of  her  power, 
of  her  high  place  among  the  nations  of 
Europe.  They  regarded  her  glory  as 
their  own.  We  have  seen  that  loyalty 
was  in  the  fiber  of  the  old  Washington 
breed.  The  race  qualities  were  strong 
in  their  American  descendant.  He  had 
dreamed  in  his  youth  that  he  should 
some  time  visit  England,  and  see  the 
ancient  cradle  of  his  house ;  but  the 
charms  of  Martha  Custis  and  the  cares 
of  Mount  Vernon,  had  prevented  his 
carrying  out  the  wish,  until  it  was 
finally  abandoned. 


England  and  America.          137 

We  have  seen  that  there  was  one 
dread  which,  for  thirty  years,  haunted 
the  scant  populations  along  the  eastern 
seaboard  of  America.  It  was  a  dread 
which  the  New  England  Puritan  and 
the  Virginia  planter  alike  shared  with 
all  Protestant  England.  Their  common 
peril  must  have  drawn  the  colonies  in 
closer  sympathy  with  the  mother  coun- 
try. Crises  came  when  the  Pretender 
shook  all  Great  Britain  —  when  even 
George  II.,  courageous  with  the  cour- 
age of  his  hard  old  race,  almost  gave 
up  everything  for  lost,  and  determined 
to  die  fighting  valiantly  in  his  palace 
for  the  crown  and  kingdom  that  the 
Stuarts  had  come  back  to  claim. 

Fourteen  years  after  the  battle  of 
Culloden  had  forever  settled  the  suc- 
cession in  favor  of  the  Brunswick  line, 


138     Life  of  George   Washington. 

George  III.  ascended  the  English 
throne.  This  event  was  the  occasion 
of  great  rejoicings  throughout  the 
realm.  The  young  sovereign,  unlike 
the  previous  monarchs  of  his  house, 
was  a  native  of  England.  At  the  time 
of  his  accession  he  showed  some  quali- 
ties which  touched  the  popular  heart 
and  imagination.  People  everywhere 
rang  the  changes  on  the  purity,  the 
piety,  the  filial  character  of  the  young 
King.  He  was  yet  to  prove  that  his 
intellect  was  of  the  narrowest  order; 
while  his  education,  under  his  arbitrary 
mother,  Augusta  of  Saxe-Gotha,  had 
unhappily  strengthened  all  the  defects 
of  his  character. 

"George,  be  a  King!"  was  the  ad- 
vice which  she  constantly  rung  in  his 
ears  through  \\\?  .childhood;  and  he 


England  and  America.  139 

proved,  through  his  long  life,  that  the 
words  had  made  an  ineffaceable  impres- 
sion on  a  nature  at  once  narrow,  big- 
oted, and  hopelessly  obstinate.  Indeed, 
his  limited  understanding  and  his  lack 
of  imagination,  made  it  impossible  for 
him  to  conceive  that  there  could  be 
any  side  of  a  question  but  the  one 
which  he  approved.  Nobody  suspected, 
however,  at  the  time  of  his  accession, 
the  lurking  insanity  which  was  to  make 
the  closing  years  of  his  reign  almost  as 
tragic  as  King  Lear's. 

No  doubt  the  colonies  shared  in  Eng- 
land's rejoicings,  when  a  vessel  brought 
the  first  tidings  of  the  new  reign  to 
America.  Bonfires  probably  blazed  and 
bells  rang,  to  emulate  the  celebrations 
three  thousand  miles  away.  How  little 
anybody  at  that  time  could  have  fore- 


140     Life  of  George   Washington. 

seen  that  the  new  king's  obstinacy  and 
tyranny  would,  less  than  thirty  years 
later,  force  his  loyal  colonies  into  the 
rebellion  which  was  to  separate  them 
forever  from  his  crown  ! 

This  is  not  the  place  to  enter  on  the 
long  chapter  of  colonial  wrongs.  It 
may  be  said  here,  however,  that  their 
history  proves  that  America's  affection 
for  England  never  met  with  a  response. 
This  fact  was  largely  due  to  the  selfish 
commercial  instincts  of  Great  Britain. 
It  was  the  interest  of  her  manufactures 
and  commerce  to  restrict  and  suppress 
the  growth  and  independence  of  the 
young  nation  beyond  the  sea.  Eng- 
land's legislation  for  America,  inspired 
by  the  selfishness  and  jealousy  of  her 
commercial  classes,  was  intolerably  op- 
pressive. Many  of  the  industries  of  the 


England  and  America.  141 

country  were  ruined ;  nearly  all  lan- 
guished under  restraints  and  prohibi- 
tions interposed  solely  for  the  benefit 
of  Great  Britain. 

America,  with  her  vast  seaboard,  saw 
her  ports  closed  by  navigation  laws 
against  foreign  vessels.  She  was  forced 
to  carry  her  exports  only  to  countries 
belonging  to  Great  Britain.  All  her 
imports  must  be  made  from  England 
and  in  English  ships.  Even  the  trade 
between  one  colony  and  another  was 
hampered  and  prohibited  in  ways  that 
now  seem  incredible. 

A  people  whose  instincts  of  freedom 
had  been  nourished  alike  by  their  history 
and  traditions,  and  by  the  noble  country 
which  they  were  everywhere  reclaiming 
from  savage  and  wild  beast,  could  not 
tamely  submit  to  injustice  and  oppression. 


142      Life  of  George    Washington. 

America,  with  the  prescience  of  her 
great  future  opening  before  her,  was 
jealous  for  her  liberties,  and  resolved  to 
maintain  them  at  any  cost. 

There  was,  consequently,  no  question 
on  which  the  colonies  were  so  sensitive 
as  that  of  taxation.  This,  as  they  had 
no  representation  in  the  English  Parlia- 
ment, they  regarded  as  slavery.  Any 
attempt  of  the  mother  country  to  raise 
a  revenue  from  colonial  imports  was 
certain  to  raise  a  storm  among  the 
people. 

During  the  long,  peaceful  administra- 
tion of  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  while  the 
House  of  Brunswick  held  its  insecure 
tenure  of  crown  and  kingdom,  the  deli- 
cate matter  of  colonial  taxation  was 
wisely  kept  in  the  background.  But 
after  the  accession  of  George  III.,  Par- 


England  and  America.  143 

liament  boldly  affirmed  its  right  to  tax 
the  colonies.  Various  duties  were  im- 
posed, and  the  following  year  the  hated 
Stamp  Act  was  passed. 

It  was  ominous  that  the  first  protest 
against  the  Stamp  Act,  should  come 
from  the  old,  aristocratic  Province  of 
Virginia.  Her  history,  her  traditions, 
the  forms  of  her  domestic  and  social 
life,  naturally  tended  to  bring  the  oldest 
of  the  colonies  in  closer  sympathy  than 
her  younger  sisters  with  the  mother 
country. 

Washington  was  in  his  seat  in  the 
House  of  Burgesses  on  that  memorable 
May  day  when  the  young  lawyer,  Pat- 
rick Henry,  made  the  immortal  speech 
which  to  this  day  fires  one's  heart  to 
read. 

As  Washington  listened   to  that  stern 


144     Life  of  George   Washington. 

arraignment  of  the  English  Govern- 
ment, that  splendid  defense  of  Ameri- 
can liberties,  his  soul  must  have  glowed 
with  patriotic  ardor. 

His  letters,  after  his  return  home, 
show  the  new  trend  of  his  thoughts, 
and  the  anxious  outlook  with  which  he 
was  beginning  to  regard  the  future  of 
his  country.  His  pages  are  no  longer 
filled  with  tranquil  pictures  of  the  happy 
life  at  Mount  Vernon.  A  shadow,  des- 
tined to  deepen  with  every  year,  has 
fallen  across  the  peaceful  days. 

Washington  was  a  young  man — only 
thirty-three — when  he  listened  to  that 
speech  of  Patrick  Henry's,  which  rung 
like  a  tocsin  throughout  Virginia,  and 
thrilled  the  heart  of  America.  The 
dream  of  a  last  appeal  to  arms  was 
still  far  off,  but  there  were  signs  in  the 


England  and  America.          145 

times — there  was  a  general  feeling  of 
suspicion  and  resentment  in  the  very  air 
— which  no  keen  observer  could  fail  to 
detect,  and  which  must  have  given 
every  lover  of  his  country  many  a  mo- 
ment of  anxious  foreboding. 

The  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  in  the 
following  year,  at  first  gave  the  country 
great  satisfaction;  but  this  was  soon 
succeeded  by  fresh  disappointment  and 
indignation.  A  fatal  clause  was  added 
to  the  repeal.  England  reaffirmed,  in 
the  strongest  manner,  her  right  to  tax 
her  colonies.  A  little  later,  fresh  im- 
posts on  various  articles  of  commerce, 
proved  that  she  was  bent  on  exercising, 
in  the  most  arbitrary  manner,  the  right 
she  arrogated  to  herself. 

The  years  which  lie  between  the 
speech  of  Patrick  Henry  before  the 


146     Life  of  George   Washington. 

Virginia  House  of  Burgesses  and  the 
opening  of  the  Revolution,  are  a  well- 
trodden  track  of  American  history. 
Every  schoolboy  is  familiar  with  that 
ground.  Popular  discontent  and  agi- 
tation continued  to  spread  through  the 
land.  Fear  and  distrust  of  England 
slowly  supplanted  the  old  reverence 
and  loyalty.  The  •  mother  country  laid 
her  hand  with  heavier  weight  upon  her 
colonies.  More  and  more  she  began  to 
assume  the  character  of  their  oppressor 
and  foe. 

The  consciousness  that  their  common 
liberties  were  in  peril,  the  conviction 
that  their  only  hope  must  lie  in  an  in- 
timate union  of  interests  and  measures, 
drew  the  provinces  closer  together.  The 
feeling  of  alienation  and  jealousy  which, 
at  the  beginning,  existed  more  or  less 


England  and  America.  147 

among  them,  slowly  disappeared.  The 
colonies  agreed  on  retaliatory  measures. 
A  compact,  that  they  would  import  no 
articles  on  which  imposts  had  been 
laid,  struck  a  blow  at  the  heart  of 
British  commerce. 

America  had  founded  many  hopes  on 
the  good-will  which  she  believed  the 
king  must  cherish  toward  her.  But  it 
began  to  be  more  and  more  evident 
that  these  hopes  were  futile.  As  the 
real  character  of  the  third  monarch  of  the 
House  of  Brunswick  came  to  the  surface, 
he  showed  that  his  naturally  arbitrary  in- 
stincts were  not  held  in  check  by  an 
enlightened  understanding.  His  faults 
had,  as  we  have  seen,  been  strength- 
ened by  his  unfortunate  training.  Many 
of  the  traditions  on  which  the  youth  of 
the  future  King  of  England  had  been 


148     Life  of  George   Washington. 

nurtured  were  despotic  enough  for  the 
atmosphere  about  the  cradle  of  Philip 
II.  or  of  Louis  XIV.  With  his  char- 
acter and  his  education  it  was  impos- 
sible that  George  III.  should  be  any- 
thing but  the  powerful,  inveterate  foe 
of  American  freedom. 

During  the  decade  which  succeeded 
his  accession,  his  popularity  had  greatly 
waned  at  home.  The  corruption  and 
obsequiousness  of  the  ministers  and  para- 
sites with  whom  he  surrounded  himself, 
gradually  estranged  the  loyalty  of  his 
people.  It  was  impossible  to  disguise 
the  fact  that  venality  and  subserviency 
were  the  real  passports  to  the  sovereign's 
favor.  All  the  noblest  sentiments,  all  the 
patriot  instincts  of  the  nation,  were  out- 
raged by  the  character  and  measures  of 
those  on  whom  the  monarch  bestowed  his 


England  and  America.  149 

confidence,  and  to  whom  he  confided  the 
most  precious  interests  and  the  highest 
offices  of  the  state. 

The  wisest  and  best  men  of  the  nation, 
the  men  who  had  made  the  prosperity 
and  glory  of  England  at  home  and 
abroad,  and  who  had  inherited  the  spirit 
and  teachings  of  Hampden  and  Pym,  of 
Russell  and  Vane,  were  ignored  at  the 
court,  while  they  beheld  the  nation  bur- 
dened with  taxes,  to  support  the  minions 
of  the  king.  All  this  time  it  became 
more  and  more  evident  to  the  real  states- 
men of  England,  that  a  storm  was  brew- 
ing beyond  the  seas,  and  that  the  meas- 
ures of  the  government  to  suppress  the 
liberties  and  ruin  the  manufactures  of 
America,  would  at  last  goad  the  colo- 
nies to  desperation. 

But  other  interests  were,   for  a  while, 


150     Life  of  George   Washington. 

lost  sight  of  in  the  all-absorbing  one  of 
the  Middlesex  election,  which  shook  Eng- 
land like  an  earthquake.  The  contest, 
whatever  disguises  of  form  and  name  it 
might  take,  was  the  old  one  between  the 
liberties  of  the  people  and  the  preroga- 
tive of  the  king — a  contest  which  had 
made  the  history  of  the  seventeenth  cent- 
ury lurid  with  civil  wars,  and  ended  at 
last  by  setting  the  House  of  Brunswick 
on  the  throne  that  the  Stuarts  had  lost. 
During  the  long  battle  of  the  Middle- 
sex election,  the  name  of  John  Wilkes 
became  the  most  popular  in  England, 
and  the  letters  of  Junius  held  up,  in  the 
light  of  their  terrible  irony,  the  false 
policy  of  the  king  and  the  incapacity 
and  shameless  venality  of  his  ministers. 
While  the  right  of  John  Wilkes  to  his 
seat  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  the 


England  and  America.  151 

arraignment  of  the  government  by  Junius, 
were  convulsing  England,  the  long  strug- 
gle must  have  been  watched  with  eager 
interest  across  the  seas,  in  the  quiet 
home  by  the  Potomac. 

Though  the  owner  had  reached  the 
prime  of  his  years,  his  name  was  not  one 
familiar  to  English  lips.  Far  behind  him 
now  lay  his  stormy  youth.  Just  before 
him  a  mightier  storm  was  gathering. 

Washington  had  been,  during  the 
years  that  brought  him  to  middle  life,  a 
profoundly  interested  observer  of  the 
critical  relations  between  England  and 
America.  His  love  of  country  was  his 
deepest  feeling.  No  purer  flame  of  pa- 
triotism ever  burned  in  the  soul  of  an- 
cient hero,  than  that  which  shone  with 
calm,  steady  light  in  the  heart  of  the 
simple  Westmoreland  planter.  He  was 


152      Life  of  George   Washington. 

to  prove,  when  the  time  came,  that  no 
sacrifice  of  life  or  fortune,  of  home  or 
happiness,  would  be  too  great  for  his 
country. 

Deeply  as  he  resented  the  conduct  of 
England,  he  maintained,  through  this 
time  that  tried  men's  souls,  his  calmness 
of  speech  and  attitude.  Yet,  as  one 
high-handed  measure  of  Parliament  fol- 
lowed another,  and  revealed  the  temper 
of  the  government  and  its  purpose  to 
crush  the  young  liberties  of  America, 
Washington  could  not  conceal  from 
himself  the  fact  that  there  might  come 
a  day  when  his  country  would  have  no 
choice  but  the  last  appeal  of  freemen. 

But  this  reflection  was  unutterably 
painful.  Washington  had  the  tempera- 
ment with  which  old  associations  and 
habits  are  powerful.  He  had  no  delight 


England  and  America.  153 

in  the  stormy  atmosphere  of  revolutions 
and  rebellions.  He  long  clung  to  the 
hope  that  a  better  spirit  would  prevail  in 
the  counsels  of  those  who  held  the  des- 
tinies of  America  in  their  hands.  He 
knew  that  she  had  wise  and  powerful 
friends  in  Parliament  and  near  the 
throne.  That  consciousness  must  have 
given  him  courage  in  many  a  dark  hour. 
He  must  have  felt  a  terrible  recoil  when- 
ever he  dwelt  on  the  possibility  of  seeing 
that  flag  in  whose  service  he  had  won 
such  honors,  and  to  which  he  had  given 
the  best  years  of  his  youth,  arrayed 
against  him.  Still,  if  the  issue  ever 
came,  he  could  never  have  doubted  where 
it  would  find  him. 

At  this  juncture  it  became  important 
that  Washington  should  make  a  trip  to 
the  Ohio  River.  The  "  soldiers'  claims," 


154      Life  of  George   Washington. 

as  they  were  called,  were  not  adjusted. 
These  meant  the  promised  award  of 
lands  to  men  who  had  served  in  the 
"Old  French  War."  The  Six  Nations 
had  recently  sold  their  territories  south 
of  the  Ohio  to  the  British  Crown.  It 
was  necessary  that  Washington  should 
visit  the  wild  lands,  to  select  special 
tracts  for  which  he  would  make  applica- 
tion to  government,  in  order  that  the 
long-standing  soldiers'  claims  should  be 
liquidated. 

This  journey  must  have  formed  a 
bright  episode  amid  the  dark  fears 
and  forebodings  of  that  time.  Wash- 
ington set  out  in  the  pleasant  Octo- 
ber weather,  with  his  favorite  com- 
panion, Dr.  Craik.  They  visited  the 
scenes  of  their  early  exploits.  The 
two  companions  lived  over  their  youth 


England  and  America.  155 

again.  They  had  friendly  conferences 
with  the  Indians.  They  swept  in  their 
canoe  down  the  broad  current  of  the 
Ohio.  Deer  bounded  along  the  shores; 
flocks  of  wild  game  darkened  the  sky 
overhead.  Here  Washington  could  in- 
dulge, to  the  top  of  his  bent,  his  old 
sporting  proclivities.  Once  more,  when 
night  fell,  they  encamped  on  the  river 
bank,  and  tasted  the  keen  delight  of  a 
hunter's  supper.  The  winds  of  the 
old  Westmoreland  meadow  must  have 
seemed  to  blow  through  those  wild, 
free,  happy  days.  They  lie  close  to 
the  long,  dark,  stormy  years  on  which 
Washington  was  now  to  enter.  Indeed, 
this  expedition  to  the  Ohio  may  be  said 
to  form  the  last  real  holiday  of  George 
Washington's  life.  Splendid  honors  and 
fetes  awaited  him  long  afterward ;  but 


156      Life  of  George   Washington. 

these  came  when  the  close  of  the  Rev- 
olution had  left  him,  as  he  pathetically 
said,  "an  old  man." 

During  this  journey  Washington  made 
a  visit  to  Fort  Duquesne.  It  must  have 
been  a  thrilling  moment  when  he  looked 
once  more  on  the  scene  where  his  mili- 
tary career  had  ended  eleven  years 
before.  The  old  days  of  hardships, 
struggles,  and  cruel  disappointments 
could  not  fail  to  crowd  on  his  memory 
as  he  gazed  on  the  familiar  site.  Log- 
huts  of  Indian  traders  were  scattered 
about,  where,  a  century  later,  the  busy, 
prosperous  city  of  Pittsburg  was  to  lift 
its  spires. 

This  year  of  1770,  in  which  Wash- 
ington made  his  journey  to  the  Ohio, 
was  memorable  for  the  change  which 
took  place  in  the  British  Cabinet — a 


England  and  America.  157 

change  which  was  to  have  so  tremen- 
dous an  influence  on  the  fortunes  of 
America.  Lord  North  was  placed  at 
the  head  of  the  British  Government. 
The  new  minister  had  none  of  the 
"divining  genius"  or  the  large  aims  of 
the  true  statesman.  He  was  as  incapa- 
ble of  feeling  the  temper  of  the  times 
as  he  was  of  adapting  himself  to  it. 
He  had  no  conception  of  a  broad  and 
generous  policy  in  dealing  with  the  new 
questions  and  events  of  his  own  age. 
These  he  was  alike  unfitted,  by  under- 
standing and  character,  to  compre- 
hend. 

It  seemed  a  terrible  irony  which,  at 
this  crisis,  placed  the  fortunes  of  the 
American  Colonies  in  the  hands  of  Lord 
North.  He  had  one  merit,  however; 
he  was  a  favorite  with  his  royal  master. 


158      Life  of  George   Washington. 

George  III.  had  at  last  found  a  minis- 
ter after  his  own  heart.  He  could  be 
safely  trusted  to  carry  out  to  the  bitter 
end  the  oppressive  policy  of  the 
king. 


CHAPTER    X. 

GATHERING    OF    THE    STORM. 

A  NEW  chapter  in  the  history  of  Eng- 
lish and  American  affairs  opened  with 
Lord  North's  administration.  He  be- 
gan, as  was  to  be  anticipated,  with  a 
fatal  mistake.  All  the  colonial  taxes 
were  to  be  revoked,  except  that  on  tea. 
This  was  retained,  as  Lord  North  ex- 
pressly stated,  in  order  to  prove  the 
RIGHT  of  England  to  tax  America.  The 
colonies  met  this  measure  with  one 
which  was  certain  to  deal  England  a 
blow  where  she  was  most  sensitive ; 
they  entered  into  a  wide  covenant  to 
taste  no  tea. 

Here,    again,    it    was    significant    that 


160     Life  of  George   WasJtington. 

Virginia  led  her  sister  colonies.  The 
method  of  retaliation  originated  with  her 
Assembly. 

In  the  midst  of  this  public  excitement 
a  great  gloom  fell  upon  Mount  Vernon 
in  the  loss  of  its  only  daughter.  She 
had  always  been  delicate,  and  sickened 
suddenly  in  her  seventeenth  year. 

Washington's  public  position  involved 
frequent  absences  from  home.  He 
now  returned  to  find  the  young  girl, 
to  whom  he  was  so  deeply  attached,  in 
the  last  stages  of  consumption.  In  his 
grief  he  knelt  at  •  her  bedside  and 
poured  out  prayers  for  her  recovery. 
This  was  one  of  the  instances  in  which 
Washington's  feelings  overcame  his 
usual  reserve.  His  religion  was  deep 
and  fervent,  but  it  was  not  emotional. 
It  partook  of  the  strength  and  reticence 


Gathering  of  the  Storm.          161 

of  his  own  character.  A  time  was 
drawing  near  which  was  to  test  his 
piety.  This  was  to  prove,  through 
long,  dark  hours,  the  chief  support 
and  solace  of  the  soldier.  But  the 
young  life  for  which  he  pleaded  was 
doomed.  His  adopted  daughter  ex- 
pired on  the  9th  of  June,  1773. 

Outside  of  that  mourning  home  events 
marched  rapidly.  The  proscribed  tea- 
chests  lay  piled  in  the  storehouses  of 
the  East  India  Company.  Lord  North 
now  removed  the  export  tax,  sup- 
posing, with  his  usual  fatuity  in  all 
that  concerned  the  colonies,  that  the 
low  price  of  the  tea  would  at  once  se- 
cure large  sales.  He  had  not  the  faint- 
est idea  of  the  wide-spread  indignation 
which  his  tyranny  had  aroused.  The 
company  sent  its  teas  to  America,  and 


1 62      Life  of  George   Washington. 

we  all  know  how  the  cargoes  came  to 
grief  on  that  i8th  of  December,  1773, 
when  the  ships  lay  at  anchor  in  Boston 
Harbor. 

Matters  had  now  reached  a  crisis. 
Boston  was,  at  this  time,  the  most  flour- 
ishing commercial  town  on  the  conti- 
nent. Its  inhabitants  had,  from  the 
beginning,  been  foremost  in  asserting 
their  independence,  and  insisting  on  the 
sacred  rights  of  freemen.  The  Parlia- 
ment, therefore,  regarded  the  little  town 
by  the  sea  as  the  "  hotbed  of  sedition." 
When  tidings  of  the  destruction  of  the 
tea  cargoes  reached  England,  the 
enraged  government  resolved  that  a 
signal  example  should  be  made  of  Bos- 
ton. 

On  the  loth  of  May,  1774,  the  act 
for  closing  the  port  reached  the  town. 


Gathering  of  the  Storm.         163 

This  was  a  memorable  day  in  the  history 
of  two  worlds.  It  was  on  that  day  that 
Louis  XVI.  and  Marie  Antoinette  as- 
cended the  throne  of  France.  The 
young  sovereigns,  when  they  first  learned 
of  the  death  of  the  old  king,  had  fallen 
on  their  knees,  exclaiming,  "  O,  God, 
we  are  too  young  to  reign  ! " 

No  shadow  of  the  guillotine  loomed 
darkly  through  the  rejoicings  of  those 
May  days ;  no  thought  of  the  devoted 
little  town  on  the  far  western  coast,  on 
which  England's  bolt  had  fallen  so  heav- 
ily, entered  the  thought  of  monarch  or 
courtier,  amid  the  grand  inaugurals  of  the 
new  reign.  The  simple  facts  of  history 
are  often  more  incredible  than  the  wild- 
est romance.  Time  was  to  prove  that 
the  Boston  Port  Bill  and  the  fall  of  the 
Bourbons  had  an  intimate  connection. 


164     Life  of  George   Washington. 

The  bill  which  closed  the  port  of  Bos- 
ton, and  thus  doomed  to  destruction  the 
most  flourishing  commercial  town  on  the 
continent,  roused  America.  Each  colony 
regarded  the  blow  as  aimed  at  itself. 
The  letter,  containing  tidings  of  the  bill, 
was  read  in  the  Virginia  House  of  Bur- 
gesses. All  business  was  suspended. 
A  protest  was  made,  and  the  ist  of 
June — the  day  on  which  Boston  was  to 
be  blockaded  at  noon — set  apart  as  a 
day  of  humiliation,  fasting,  and  prayer. 

The  next  morning,  when  the  Bur- 
gesses re-assembled,  Lord  Dunmore,  the 
governor  of  the  colony,  dissolved  the 
House*.  The  members  immediately  re- 
paired to  the  old  Raleigh  Tavern,  only 
a  few  paces  from  the  Capitol.-  Under  the 
old  historic  roof  various  memorable  res- 
olutions were  passed.  But  the  one 


Gathering  of  the  Storm.         165 

which  proposed  that  the  deputies  of 
the  colonies  should  meet  annually  in 
General  Congress  overshadows  in  im- 
portance every  other. 

On  the  ist  of  June,  1774,  Washing-- 
ton, as  his  diary  states,  "fasted  rigor- 
ously and  attended  the  services  of  his 
church."  It  was  the  day  when  the 
British  vessels  of  war  rode  up  at  noon 
and .  blockaded  the  port.  The  Virginia 
gentleman  who  that  day  was  fasting  for 
Boston,  was  to  prove  a  little  later  that 
he  could  also  fight  for  her. 

The  progress  of  events  only  confirmed 
the  worst  fears  of  every  lover  of  his 
country.  It  was  evident  that  England 
was  bent  on  crushing  the  liberties  of 
America.  But  while,  during  the  sum- 
mer, the  busy  wharves  of  Boston  grew 
silent  under  the  black  shadow  of  the 


1 66     Life  of  George   Washington. 

war-ships,  and  ruin  crept  slowly  along 
the  quaint,  narrow  streets  that,  a  little 
while  before,  had  been  humming  with  life 
and  prosperity,  a  new  spirit  was  awak- 
ening throughout  the  land — a  spirit  that 
was  destined  to  sweep  everything  before 
it.  No  man  could,  of  course,  forecast 
the  hour  of  the  Revolution,  or  discern 
what  form  it  would  take  at  the  begin- 
ning. But  the  approach  of  that  mighty 
storm  which  was  to  rend  two  nations 
apart,  was  felt  in  the  air  during  all  the 
summer  of  1774 — the  last  peaceful  one 
which  America  was  to  know  for  years. 

A  new  mood  was  coming  over  the 
people  who  inhabited  the  Atlantic  sea- 
board of  America  —  the  mood  which 
makes  heroes  of  the  men  it  possesses. 
The  country  did  not  want  leaders  at 
this  time.  The  wisest  heads  and  the 


Gathering  of  the  Storm.          167 

truest  hearts  of  the  nation  came  to  her 
aid.  Frequent  meetings  gave  expression 
to  the  feeling  of  common  danger,  to  the 
sense  of  common  duty.  Fresh  meas- 
ures of  coercion  and  oppression  only 
added  fresh  fuel  to  the  popular  resent- 
ment. The  question  at  issue  between 
England  and  America  was  fast  becom- 
ing a  life  and  death  one  to  the  colo- 
nists. Freedom  and  slavery  hung  in 
the  balance  for  them  and  their  pos- 
terity. 

Washington  was  in  the  thick  of  affairs 
that  summer.  His  position  in  his  own 
county,  the  weight  of  his  character  and 
his  word,  made  his  example  of  immense 
consequence  at  this  crisis.  The  meet- 
ings and  conventions  at  which  he  was 
chairman  prove,  as  all  his  speeches  and 
letters  do,  his  ardent  sympathy  with  the 


1 68      Life  of  George    Washington. 

popular  cause.  When  the  hour  of  trial 
came,  nobody  could  doubt  where  it  would 
find  him. 

Yet  his  calm,  sagacious  mind  could 
not  deceive  him  as  to  the  tremendous 
odds  against  his  country,  if  it  ever  came 
to  a  war  with  England.  Could  America, 
he  must  often  have  questioned,  send  out 
her  half-trained  yeomen  and  militia  to 
do  battle  with  the  most  powerful  foe  in 
the  world  ?  The  armies  of  Great  Brit- 
ain were  flushed  with  the  magnificent 
victories  they  had  recently  won  under 
the  administration  of  Pitt.  Washington 
knew  perfectly  the  scorn  with  which 
those  seasoned  veterans  would  regard 

o 

the  raw  levies  of  the  provinces.  But 
the  Old  French  War  had  been  a  rare 
training-school  for  the  colonial  soldiers. 
It  had  shown  them  the  strength  and 


Gathering  of  the  Storm.         169 

resources  of  their  country;  the  weak 
points  in  the  army  of  any  enemy  who 
should  meet  them  on  their  native  soil. 
Washington,  too,  had  an  unfaltering 
conviction  of  the  right  of  his  cause.  It 
was  this  conviction  which  lit  up  these 
hours  of  doubt  and  anxiety  with  hope 
and  courage.  He  knew  it  was  not  the 
part  of  a  patriot  to  despair,  so  long  as 
there  was  a  country  to  be  defended,  a 
God  of  battles  to  appeal  to. 

Washington  had  been  appointed  a 
delegate  to  the  General  Congress 
which  had  been  agreed  on  in  the  old 
Raleigh  Tavern,  on  the  day  when 
Lord  Dunmore  dissolved  the  House  of 
Burgesses.  The  congress  met,  the 
5th  of  September,  in  Carpenter's  Hall, 
in  Philadelphia.  The  meeting  was  held 
with  closed  doors.  It  was  the  most  mo- 


170     Life  of  George   Washington. 

mentous  assembly  that  had  ever  gath- 
ered on  the  Western  Continent.  An 
eloquent  writer  says  of  this  congress : 
"  The  most  eloquent  men  of  the  various 
colonies  were  now  for  the  first  time 
brought  together.  They  were  known  to 
each  other  by  fame,  but  were  personally 
strangers.  The  object  which  had  called 
them  together  was  of  incalculable  mag- 
nitude. The  happiness  of  no  less  than 
three  millions  of  people,  with  that  of  all 
their  posterity,  was  staked  on  the  wis- 
dom and  energy  of  their  councils." 

The  session  of  that  first  congress 
lasted  fifty-one  days.  No  record  of  the 
speeches  exists.  But  all  the  great  ques- 
tions which  had  brought  them  together 
were  discussed  by  men  who  realized  the 
tremendous  interests  with  which  they 
had  been  charged.  The  Stamp  Act,  the 


Gathering  of  the  Storm.          171 

Tea  Tax,  the  Act  for  Quartering  Troops, 
the  Boston  Port  Bill,  and  various  other 
illegal  and  oppressive  measures  of  Great 
Britain  came  up  for  discussion  and  con- 
demnation before  an  assembly  com- 
posed of  the  wisest  brains  and  noblest 
hearts  in  America.  "To  these  grievous 
acts  and  measures,"  solemnly  declared  the 
small  body  of  men  in  the  old  hall  of  the 
Quaker  town,  "America  cannot  submit." 

The  spirit  of  their  resolutions  breathed 
the  temper  of  patriots  and  freemen.  Buc 
the  members  proved  that  the  old  loyal 
feeling  was  not  extinct,  by  a  motion  "to 
prepare  a  loyal  address  to  his  majesty." 

That  first  Congress  did  its  great  work 
and  closed.  In  the  shortening  autumn 
days  Washington  rode  down  to  Mount 
Vernon.  His  heart  must  have  been 
heavy.  The  scenes  in  which  he  had 


172      Life  of  George   Washington. 

just  been  an  actor  had  aroused  all  his 
deep  patriotism.  His  own  future  and 
that  of  his  country  must  have  loomed 
darkly  before  him.  There  was  every 
reason  now  to  believe  that  England  was 
bent  on  driving  her  colonies  to  desper- 
ation. In  that  case,  Washington  had 
long  settled  with  himself  what  supreme 
call  he  must  obey.  Yet  the  thought  of 
leaving  his  beloved  home,  and  the  wife 
whose  heart  had  been  so  lately  torn  with 
grief,  must  have  cost  him  many  a  cruel 
moment. 

During  the  winter  that  followed,  one 
feeling  and  one  purpose  gained  strength 
throughout  the  country.  Military  meas- 
ures— hitherto  confined  to  New  England 
—  were  rapidly  adopted  by  all  the 
colonies.  While  the  men-of-war  rode 
in  Boston  Harbor,  and  General  Gage, 


Gathering  of  the  Storm.          173 

with  his  British  veterans,  encamped  on 
the  Common,  the  drum-beat,  that  herald 
of  war,  began  to  be  heard  in  the  mid- 
dle and  southern  provinces.  Virginia 
was  not  backward.  Independent  com- 
panies were  formed  on  her  soil,  and 
their  officers  constantly  repaired  to 
Washington  for  military  instruction. 
The  old,  peaceful  days  had  passed  for 
Mount  Vernon.  A  silence  had  settled 
upon  gay  Belvoir,  for  its  proprietor  had 
returned  to  England — a  gloom  had 
gathered  over  Mount  Vernon.  As 
Washington  wandered  among  the  an- 
cient woodlands  that  winter,  the  winds 
that  moaned  among  the  leafless 
branches  must  have  had  a  mournful 
prophecy  to  his  ear  and  heart.  But 
that  season  was  too  full  of  varied  activ- 
ities and  demands  to  afford  much  time 


174     Life  of  George   Washington. 

for  solitary  reflection.  He  was  often 
absent  from  home — summoned  away  to 
musters  and  reviews.  Mount  Vernon 
itself  began  to  assume  a  military  aspect 
as  the  companies  met  there  to  drill. 
All  this  must  have  seemed  a  good  deal 
like  the  old  fencing  days  of  Washing- 
ton's youth. 

The  Congress,  in  its  petition  to 
George  III.,  had  solemnly  reminded 
him,  that  "  from  our  sovereign  there 
can  be  but  one  appeal."  Deeds,  when 
the  worst  came,  would  be  sure  to  fol- 
low such  words.  But  all  prayers  and 
warnings  were  disregarded.  Contempt 
for  the  character  of  the  colonists,  and 
a  fatal  ignorance  of  their  temper,  pre- 
vailed in  English  counsels ;  and  the 
obstinate  King  and  the  subservient 
minister  went  their  own  blind  way. 


CHAPTER   XL 

THE    AMERICAN    REVOLUTION. 

NOBODY  could,  of  course,  foresee,  in 
those  days  which  immediately  preceded 
the  opening  of  the  Revolution,  where 
the  storm  would  burst.  Yet  nobody 
was,  perhaps,  surprised  that  it  first 
broke  in  New  England.  Every  child 
can  repeat  the  date  of  the  pleasant 
April  morning  when  "the  shot  was 
fired  that  was  heard  round  the  world ;  " 
and  the  long  seven  years'  drama  of  the 
Revolution  opened  with  the  firing  at 
Lexington  and  the  fight  at  Concord. 

The  news  of  that  fight  shook  the 
continent  like  an  earthquake.  As 


176      Life  of  George   Washington. 

breathless  couriers  carried  the  tale 
through  the  land,  the  popular  feeling, 
like  a  mounting  wave,  swept  every  col- 
ony into  the  Revolution.  When  the 
news  reached  Virginia,  a  cry  rang 
through  the  ancient  province,  that 
her  liberties,  like  Massachusetts',  were 
doomed !  There  was  a  general  spring- 
ing to  arms.  All  eyes  were  now  turned 
to  Washington.  He  was  everywhere 
regarded  as  the  one  best  fitted  to  take 
command  of  the  American  forces. 

Three  weeks  after  the  battle  of  Con- 
cord the  second  General  Congress  met 
in  Philadelphia.  Some  of  its  members 
still  shrank  from  severing  the  last  bond 
which  united  them  with  Great  Britain ; 
and,  even  at  that  late  hour,  voices 
pleaded  that  a  final  petition  should  be 
sent  to  the  government.  It  is  a  signifi- 


The  American  Revolution.        177 

cant  fact    that  Washington    approved  of 
this  motion. 

But  the  "humble  and  dutiful  petition 
to  the  king"  encountered  eloquent  op- 
position. It  was  felt  that  the  hour  for 
appeals  had  passed,  and  that  the  one 
for  action  had  come.  John  Adams, 
the  delegate  from  Massachusetts,  whose 
voice  had  been  so  powerful  in  the  first 
Congress,  now  strongly  opposed  any 
further  attempt  at  reconciliation,  and  it 
was  at  last  abandoned  as  hopeless. 

A  League  was  now  formed,  which, 
among  other  powers,  vested  in  Congress 
the  right  to  declare  war  or  peace. 
When  Georgia — doubtful  for  awhile — 
joined  the  confederacy  it  extended  from 
Nova  Scotia  to  Florida. 

That  small  body  of  delegates  assem- 
bled in  the  old  Quaker  City  on  the 


12 


178      Life  of  George   Washington. 

threshold  of  the  summer  of  1775,  had 
an  almost  superhuman  task  laid  upon 
it.  After  the  formation  of  the 
League,  which  virtually  constituted  a 
nation,  the  first  question  that  faced  it 
was  the  raising  and  equipping  an 
army. 

It  must  have  been  a  breathless  mo- 
ment when  John  Adams  rose  in  the 
Congress,  and  moved  that  George 
Washington,  of  Virginia,  be  appointed 
Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Colonial 
Forces.  When  his  name  was  brought 

o 

to  the  front,  Washington  sprang  up 
and  darted  into  the  library.  The 
old  modesty,  which,  when  he  was  a 
young  member  of  the  Virginia  House 
of  Burgesses,  left  him  standing  blushing 
and  speechless  among  his  peers,  had 
not  been  overcome  by  sixteen  years  of 


The  American  Revolution.       179 

public  life.  In  a  few  days,  however, 
the  appointment  was  made.  Washing- 
ton's sense  of  what  he  owed  his  coun- 
try would  not  admit  of  his  declining  it. 
But  in  the  solemn  moment  of  accepting 
those  vast,  untried  responsibilities,  he 
said  a  few  words  as  sincere  as  his  own 
character :  "  I  beg  it  may  be  remem- 
bered by  every  gentleman  in  the  room 
that  I  this  day  declare,  with  the  ut- 
most sincerity,  I  do  not  think  myself 
equal  to  the  command  I  am  honored 
with." 

It  was  characteristic  of  him,  too,  that 
he  absolutely  declined  to  accept  any 
salary  for  his  s-ervices. 

It  is  doubtful  whether,  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  Revolution,  any  man  made  so 
great  sacrifices  as  George  Washington. 
To  realize  their  extent,  it  must  be  re- 


i  So     Life  of  George   Washington. 

membered  that  he  left  a  paradise  behind 
him  when  he  went  from  Mount  Vernon. 
The  fiery  spirit  of  his  youth  had  long 
been  laid  to  rest.  The  thick  of  the  bat- 
tle had  no  charms  for  him  now.  He 
had  no  military  ambitions  to  gratify,  no 
personal  interests  to  serve.  The  ques- 
tions at  issue  between  England  and 
America  did  not  vitally  affect  his  own 
fortunes.  He  had  every  reason  to  be- 
lieve, had  he  continued  loyal  to  the 
government,  that  the  happy,  prosperous 
years  of  the  past,  might  still  stretch  far 
into  his  future.  His  calm  and  reasona- 
ble mind  could  never  be  the  victim  of 
illusions.  He  must  have  foreseen  all 
the  possibilities  of  defeat.  In  those 
sterner  times,  he  knew  what  fate  might 
await  the  leader  of  rebel  armies.  He 
would  not  hide  from  himself  the 


The  American  Revolution.       181 

chances  of  the  prisoner's  doom  or  the 
traitor's  death. 

At  the  awful  moment  when  he  looked 
these  things  in  the  face,  George  Wash- 
ington must  speak  for  himself.  "  It  is 
my  full  intention,  if  needful,"  he  wrote 
to  his  brother,  "to  devote  life  and  fort- 
une to  the  cause." 

At  this  time  his  deepest  solicitude 
was  for  the  wife  whom  he  would  leave 
lonely  and  anxious  at  Mount  Ver- 
non.  The  letter  of  manly  tenderness 
which  he  wrote  her  on  setting  out  for 
the  camp,  was  one  certain  to  appeal  to 
the  heart  and  mind  of  a  high-souled 
woman.  In  that  letter  something  of  the 
fervor  of  a  young  lover  mingled  with  the 
solemn  temper  of  the  hero. 

He  had  previously  taken  every  care 
for  his  mother.  He  had  removed  her 


1 82      Life  of  George    Washington. 

from  her  country  home  to  Fredericks- 
burg,  where  she  could  remain  in  the 
vicinity  of  friends,  and  yet  be  remote 
from  danger.  The  small  dwelling  of 
one  upright  story,  where  the  mother  of 
the  deliverer  of  his  country  passed  the 
remainder  of  her  days,  stood  on  one  of 
the  great  northern  and  southern  high- 
ways. Couriers  constantly  passed  that 
simple  home.  One  would  bring  news  of 
glorious  triumphs,  and  another  would 
follow  with  stories  of  loss  and  disaster. 
But  the  mother  of  Washington  preserved 
through  all  changes  of  fortune  the  digni- 
fied serenity  so  characteristic  of  her. 

The  Commander-in-Chief  received  his 
commission  on  the  2Oth  of  June,  1775. 
The  day  after,  he  set  out  from  Philadel- 
phia for  the  army. 

Less  than  twenty  miles  from  the  city, 


The  American  Revolution.       183 

a  courier,  spurring  in  hot  haste,  met  the 
brilliant  little  cavalcade  that  was  escort- 
ing Washington  through  the  State,  with 
tidings  of  the  Battle  of  Bunker  Hill. 
The  General's  first  eager  question, 
"  How  did  the  militia  stand  fire  ? " 
shows  the  secret  anxiety  which  the  sol- 
dier had  carried  all  this  time.  He 
knew  that  the  raw  New  England  levies 
had  undergone  a  terrible  test.  They 
had  met  the  British  veterans  in  fair 
fight  for  the  first  time. 

After  hearing  the  courier's  account  of 
the  fight,  he  exclaimed,  "The  liberties 
of  the  country  are  safe ! " 

One  seems  almost  to  hear  that  tone 
of  confident  exultation  ringing  down 
through  more  than  a  century. 

Those  about  the  General  remarked 
that  a  weight  of  doubt  and  anxiety 


184      Life  of  George    Washington. 

seemed  to  have  been  lifted  from  his 
soul. 

On  the  3d  of  July,  George  Washing- 
ton took  command  of  the  armies  at 
Cambridge — a  command  which  he  de- 
voutly hoped  would  close  with  the  next 
autumn,  but  which  he  was  'destined  to 
hold  for  the  next  eight  years. 

The  shouts  of  the  soldiers  assembled 
to  welcome  him,  and  the  thunders  of 
artillery,  first  gave  warning  to  the  en- 
emy, besieged  in  Boston,  that  the 
Commander-in-Chief  of  the  American 
Forces — or,  as  they  would  have  con- 
temptuously termed  them,  the  muster 
of  rebels — was  in  camp. 

The  tall  figure,  the  noble  face,  the 
dignified  presence  of  the  stately  Vir- 
ginian, must  have  been  a  sight  never  to 
be  forgotten  by  the  spectators,  as  he 


The  American  Revolution.       185 

wheeled  his  horse  and  drew  his  sword 
under  that  elm  whose  ancient  branches 
still  battle  with  the  winter  storms,  and 
grow  green  with  the  May.  Every  eye 
in  the  camp,  and  among  the  vast  throng 
which  had  crowded  into  Cambridge, 
gazed  with  awed  admiration  on  the  new 
General.  He  was  in  the  prime  of  his 
manhood — forty-three  at  that  time — and 
just  the  ideal  of  a  soldier  in  looks  and 
bearing.  All  who  met  Washington  con- 
cur in  ascribing  to  him  a  singular  maj- 
esty of  presence.  It  impressed  those 
who  had  been  all  their  lives  familiar 
with  courts.  Lafayette,  before  his  intro- 
duction, instantly  distinguished  Washing- 
ton amid  the  group  of  American  officers 
about  him. 

A  strange  scene  met  the  eyes  of  the 
new  Commander-in-Chief  that  July  morn- 


i86     Life  of  George   Washington. 

ing.  He  was  not  familiar  with  New 
England  life  and  habits.  He  had  been 
brought  up  in  an  atmosphere  of  social 
amenities  and  refinements.  His  own 
temperament  inclined  him  to  a  careful 
observance  of  these.  Something  that 
was  noblest  and  finest  in  the  old  cava- 
liers of  his  race  was  in  their  descend- 
ant,'who,  that  morning  at  Cambridge, 
gazed  astonished  on  the  rude  encamp- 
ment of  yeomanry.  For  he  knew  those 
rustic,  undisciplined,  ill-appointed  troops 
had  just  matched  their  strength  with 
the  proudest  army  and  navy  of  the 
world. 


CHAPTER   XII. 

THE    COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 

No  general  of  ancient  or  modern 
times  was  probably  ever  more  amazed 
than  was  George  Washington  at  sight 
of  the  forces  of  which  he  had  taken 
command.  The  men  had  left  their 
plows,  seized  their  firelocks,  and 
marched  to  the  scene  of  action  at  the 
call  of  their  country.  The  tents  must 
have  been  a  sight  for  laughter  and 
tears.  They  were  made  of  sail-cloth  or 
stone,  of  birches  or  boards,  of  turf  or 
brush,  as  suited  the  resources  and 
tastes  of  the  occupants.  The  soldiers 
were  destitute  of  arms,  uniforms,  stores 
— every  equipment  that  an  army  re- 


1 88     Life  of  George   Washington. 

quires.  They  had  very  imperfect  ideas 
of  military  order,  and  were  liable  to 
strongly  resent  any  attempt  to  exer- 
cise necessary  discipline.  They  were 
bound  together  by  a  common  love  of 
their  country,  a  common  sense  of  her 
wrongs,  and  by  the  wrath  of  freemen 
against  the  proud  and  powerful  foe  who 
was  bent  on  destroying  their  liberties. 

In  this  temper  of  the  yeoman  soldiery 
lay  the  strength  of  the  army,  the  hope 
of  America.  The  hearts  that  throbbed 
under  those  homespun  coats  burned 
with  an  undying  patriotism ;  the  hands, 
brown  as  the  furrows  they  had  been 
tilling,  were  eager  to  cross  swords 
again  with  the  enemy  that  held  com- 
mand of  Boston,  and  rode  in  insolent 
triumph  in  the  harbor. 

The  ride  which  Washington  took  that 


The  Commandcr-in-Chief.        189 

summer  morning  along  the  American 
lines,  stretching  weak  and  irregular 
from  Winter  Hill  to  Dorchester  Neck, 
was  not  calculated  to  inspire  the  new 
chief  with  more  sanguine  hopes  than 
the  sight  of  the  encampment  at  Cam- 
bridge. That  first  day  of  command 
must  have  occasioned  him  the  keenest 
disappointment.  The  numbers  and 
equipment  of  the  American  forces  had 
been  greatly  exaggerated  to  him. 

At  the  summit  of  Prospect  Hill 
Washington  drew  rein,  and  gazed  on 
the  British  encampment  that  lay  before 
him.  He  saw  the  flag  to  whose  service 
he  had  given  the  pride  and  strength  of 
his  youth.  The  folds  floated  in  triumph 
from  the  summit  of  Bunker  Hill,  and 
from  the  ships-of-the-line  in  the  harbor. 
He  must  have  recalled  the  day — now 


190      Life  of  George    Washington. 

more  than  sixteen  years  ago — when  he 
planted  that  standard  on  the  smoking 
ruins  of  Fort  Duquesne.  Under  that 
flag  now  lay  an  army  perfectly  equipped 
and  admirably  disciplined.  Under  him 
was  assembled  a  motley  force  of  about 
fourteen  thousand  levies,  full  of  the 
high,  free  spirit  they  had  brought  from 
their  native  hills,  and  quite  ready  to 
rebel  or  desert  at  any  attempt  to  main- 
tain military  discipline. 

As  Washington  gazed  once  more  on 
the  wide-mouthed  chimneys  and  steep- 
roofed  houses  of  Boston,  he  must  have 
recalled,  too,  that  time  when,  with  his 
gay  young  companions,  he  clattered 
into  the  narrow  streets  of  the  humming 
little  seaport.  Those  bustling  streets 
were  silent  now.  The  piers  were  rot- 
ting about  the  wharves  that  had  been 


The  Commander-in-Chicf.         191 

so  full  of  varied,  busy  life.  England 
had  set  her  iron  heel  on  all  the  activ- 
ity and  industry  of  the  old  days. 

The  British  had  taken  possession  of 
Boston  to  find  themselves  blockaded 
there  by  the  American  forces.  These 
were  distributed  in  a  long,  semicircular 
line,  extending  eight  or  nine  miles. 
The  farthest  northern  post  lay  at  Win- 
ter Hill;  the  most  southern,  at  Roxbury 
and  Dorchester  Neck. 

As  Washington  made  his  first  survey 
that  summer  morning ;  as  his  keenly 
observant  eyes  took  in  the  weak  points 
in  the  long,  straggling  American  lines, 
he  must  have  been  astonished  that  such 
an  army  could  hold  Gage  and  his  vet- 
erans blockaded  in  Boston  for  a  day. 

The  first  care  of  the  General  was,  of 
course,  to  improve  and  strengthen  the 


192     Life  of  George   Washington* 

defenses  of  the  camp.  The  whole  army 
soon  gave  evidence  of  a  vigorous  and 
efficient  command.  As  soon  as  the 
main  forts  were  strengthened  by  addi- 
tional works,  and  something  like  mili- 
tary order  was  established,  Washington 
grew  eager  to  draw  the  enemy  out  of 
Boston.  He  longed  to  bring  his  yeo- 
man soldiery  once  more  face  to  face 
with  Gage's  seasoned  troops  ;  but  the  en- 
emy did  not  venture  on  an  engagement. 

The  summer,  the  autumn,  the  winter 
— with  more  than  the  usual  rigor  of  a 
New  England  winter — wore  away,  and 
still  the  long,  blockading  cordon  kept 
the  British  closely  imprisoned  in  Bos- 
ton. The  town,  unable  to  break 
through  the  besieging  lines  and  obtain 
supplies  from  the  country  around,  be- 
gan to  suffer  severely. 


The  Commander-in-Chief.         193 

That  winter  was  full  of  new  anxieties, 
vexations,  and  trials  for  Washington. 
There  were  times,  during  those  first 
months  of  command,  when  he  bitterly 
regretted  having  assumed  it.  It  is  not 
singular  that,  amid  such  untried  circum- 
stances and  responsibilities,  even  his 
patience  sometimes  gave  out.  One  of 
his  deepest  annoyances  was  the  general 
insubordination  of  the  troops.  Washing- 
ton at  first  misunderstood  the  tempera- 
ment and  character  of  the  New  England 
soldier.  The  latter's  native  independ- 
ence, his  openly  expressed  contempt  for 
rules  and  forms,  shocked  one  who,  by 
nature  and  education,  had  a  profound 
regard  for  military  rank  and  etiquette. 
It  took  some  time,  and  some  bitter  ex- 
perience, for  the  General  and  the  troops 

under  him  to    learn    and    appreciate  the 
13 


194     Life  of  George   Washington. 

sterling1  qualities,  the  splendid  staying 
power,  of  each  other. 

As  one  reads  the  history  of  those 
months,  they  seem  more  incredible  than 
the  wildest  romance.  Mistake  and  inef- 
ficiency, delay  and  parsimony,  in  every 
department  of  service,  filled  the  prompt, 
fiery  spirited  commander  with  amaze- 
ment and  disgust.  Under  his  almost 
perfect  self-command  burned  a  fierce 
temper.  He  scorned  petty  characters 
and  dealings,  and  it  was  at  first  difficult 
for  him  to  make  due  consideration  for 
ideas,  habits,  practices,  which  formed 
the  antithesis  of  his  own. 

Washington's  discouragements  must 
have  seemed  to  culminate  on  the  day 
that  he  learned  there  were  but  thirty- 
two  barrels  of  powder  in  camp.  With 
this  amount  of  ammunition  he  was  actu- 


The  Commander -in- Chief.         195 

ally  besieging  the  British  army  in  Bos- 
ton !  At  the  time  of  his  taking  the 
command,  the  Committee  of  Supplies 
had  made  a  return  of  three  hundred 
barrels.  This  instance  affords  a  per- 
fect illustration  of  the  careless  manage- 
ment of  military  affairs,  which  so  se- 
verely tried  Washington's  soul  at  that 
period.  He  lost  no  time  in  obtain- 
ing fresh  supplies.  Happily,  the  enemy 
made  no  sortie  at  this  critical  mo- 
ment. Washington  dispatched  agents  to 
all  quarters  for  lead  and  powder.  No 
quantity,  however  small,  was  to  be  re- 
jected when  the  need  was  so  imminent. 
After  immense  exertions  the  American 
camp  was  supplied  with  fresh  ammunition. 
In  November  Mrs.  Washington  joined 
her  husband  at  the  headquarters  which 
had  been  provided  for  him  in  Cam- 


196     Life  of  George    Washington. 

bridge.  She  had  made  the  long  jour- 
ney from  Mount  Vernon  in  her  own 
private  carriage.  There  had  been  more 
or  less  fear  that  the  beautiful  home  of 
the  General  of  the  rebel  armies  would 
be  marked  out  as  an  especial  object  of 
British  vengeance.  Mrs.  Washington, 
however,  had  not  shared  this  alarm,  and 
had  declined  the  guard  which  her 
friends  had  offered  when  they  advised 
her  to  flee  for  safety.  Washington  him- 
self did  not  believe  she  was  in  any 
peril  ;  but  he  urged  her  to  come  to 
him ;  and,  as  we  read  of  her  long,  slow 
journey,  with  the  escorts  and  guards 
of  honor,  and  the  ceremonious  recep- 
tions that  awaited  her  along  the  route, 
we  are  reminded  of  the  splendid  prog- 
ress of  queens,  in  ancient  times,  through 
their  dominions. 


The  Commander-in- Chief.         197 

The  presence  of  Mrs.  Washington  at 
headquarters  was  a  great  relief  to  her 
husband.  Petty  rivalries  and  jealousies 
there  had  already  added  to  his  discom- 
fort. His  wife  presided  in  her  new 
sphere  with  her  usual  grace  and  dig- 
nity, and  gave  to  the  ancient  Cam- 
bridge mansion  something  of  the  home 
atmosphere  of  Mount  Vernon. 

During  the  whole  of  that  winter  the 
wonder  was — a  wonder  which  has  never 
been  fully  explained — why  the  enemy, 
the  very  flower  of  the  British  army,  did 
not  sally  in  force  from  the  town,  break 
through  the  weak  besieging  lines,  and 
carry  defeat  and  dismay  into  the  ranks 
of  the  rebels. 

But  all  those  months  the  war-ships 
rode  in  the  harbor,  the  tramp  of  the 
red- coats  echoed  through  the  narrow 


198      Life  of  George   Washington. 

streets,  shaded  by  the  gabled,  steep- 
roofed  houses,  and  the  militia  still  held 
their  lines  unbroken  from  Winter  Hill 
to  Dorchester  Neck. 

We  all  know  how  the  monotony  of 
the  siege  was  broken  up  at  last.  On 
that  cold  March  night  of  1776,  when 
Washington  intrenched  himself  at  Dor- 
chester Heights,  he  held  the  city  of 
Boston  in  his  power.  On  the  1 7th  the 
memorable  embarkation  took  place,  and 
the  last  sail  of  the  British  fleet  disap- 
peared from  Boston  Harbor. 

The  next  day,  with  drums  beating 
and  colors  flying,  and  amid  the  joyful 
welcomes  of  the  people,  Washington 
entered  the  town  he  had  delivered  from 
its  enemies.  The  American  General  had 
won  his  first  victory. 

It  does  not  fall  within  the  compass  of 


The  Commander-in- Chief.         199 

this  brief  biography  to  tell  the  long 
story  of  the  Revolution.  Many  eloquent 
pens  have  written  of  the  Siege  of  Bos- 
ton, of  the  masterly  retreat  from  Long 
Island,  of  the  late  escape  at  the  critical 
moment  from  New  York,  of  the  weary 
winter  marchings  through  the  Jerseys,  of 
the  midnight  crossing  of  the  Delaware, 
of  the  victories  of  Trenton  and  Prince- 
ton, of  the  huts  at  Morristown  and  the 
unutterable  miseries  of  Valley  Forge,  of 
the  defeats  of  Brandywine  and  Ger- 
mantown,  until  all  these  were  crowned 
at  last  with  the  splendid  success  and 
the  final  surrender  before  the  allied 
armies  at  Yorktown.  Each  one  of  these 
scenes  forms  a  thrilling  drama.  Many 
of  them  live,  not  only  in  the  pages  of 
history,  but  in  the  ballads  of  the  poet 
and  on  the  canvas  of  the  painter. 


2OO     Life  of  George   Washington. 

The  War  of  the  Revolution  was,  from 
the  beginning,  a  war  of  defense.  It  was 
in  the  very  nature  of  things  that  it 
should  be  so.  It  afforded  comparatively 
few  opportunities  for  brilliant  deeds,  and 
for  those  sudden  displays  of  great  mili- 
tary genius  which  dazzle  the  imagina- 
tion, and  make  the  world  hold  its  breath. 
The  "American  Fabias"was  not  a  title 
which  Bonaparte  would  have  coveted. 
We  know  with  what  contempt  he  spoke 
of  the  Revolution  to  Lafayette.  But  the 
man  who  had  the  power  to  wait,  knew, 
and  was  always  ready  when  the  hour 
came  for  him  to  strike.  "  It  is  simply 
unfair,"  says  one  of  his  biographers, 
"  to  compare  Washington  with  those 
great  generals  who  figure  in  the  pages 
of  history,  and  who  have  won  their  fame 
at  the  head  of  vast  armies  of  veteran 


The  Commander-in-Chief.        201 

troops  furnished  with  boundless  supplies. 
Those  generals  did  not  have  an  army 
to  create  out  of  raw  militia.  They  did 
not  have  an  empty  treasury,  an  un- 
housed, half-fed,  half-clothed  soldiery. 
They  did  not  have  to  write,  as  he  did, 
in  one  dark  moment  of  the  disastrous 
campaign  of  1776,  that  "five  hundred  dol- 
lars would  be  of  immense  service  to  him." 
With  veteran  generals,  with  the  flower 
of  Hessian  and  British  troops  arrayed 
against  him,  he  had  also  to  contend 
with  or  silently  endure  the  jealousies 
and  underminings  of  his  subordinates, 
the  perpetual  interference  of  Congress 
with  his  military  plans,  and  the  igno- 
rance, incapacity,  and  obstinacy  of  those 
to  whom  he  was  obliged  to  confide  the 
execution  of  his  orders  at  most  critical 
moments. 


202      Life  of  George   Washington. 

Between  the  morning  fight  at  Concord 
and  the  evacuation  of  New  York  by  the 
British  troops,  November  25,  1783 — the 
last  scene  of  the  war — lay  almost  nine 
years.  No  doubt  it  seemed  more  than 
all  the  rest  of  their  lives  to  our  ances- 
tors. A  few  days  after  the  last  scarlet 
uniform  had  disappeared  from  the  soil,  a 
scene  occurred  to  which  the  pen  of  no 
historian  can  do  justice.  Washington 
took  leave  of  his  officers  in  the  old 
New  York  Tavern,  near  the  ferry, 
where  a  barge  waited  to  convey  him 
across  the  Hudson  to  Paulus  Hook. 
That  last  interview,  with  all  that  it 
meant,  and  all  the  memories  that 
crowded  about  the  hour,  overcame  even 
the  great  self-command  of  Washington. 
He  broke  down  like  a  child.  He  gazed 
through  blinding  tears  on  the  faces  of 


The  Commander-in- Chief.        203 

the  men  who  had  shared  with  him  un- 
speakable toils,  hardships,  and  perils. 
As  each  officer  approached,  he  silently 
kissed  the  brown,  bearded  face  with 
more  than  a  brother's  tenderness. 

Not  a  word  was  spoken.  The  officers 
followed  that  beloved,  stately  figure  as 
it  passed  on  foot  through  a  corps  of 
light  infantry  to  the  ferry.  When  he 
arrived  there,  Washington  entered  the 
barge,  removed  his  hat,  and  waved  a 
silent  adieu.  It  requires  very  little  effort 
of  imagination  to  see  the  tall  figure 
standing  there,  the  grave,  benignant 
face,  the  gray  hair  waving  in  the  au- 
tumn wind,  and  the  dark  barge  moving 
slowly  away  over  the  Hudson. 

On  the  summer  morning  when  he 
took  command  of  the  American  army 
under  the  elm  at  Cambridge,  Washing- 


204     Life  of  George    Washington. 

ton  was  in  the  prime  of  his  years.  But 
the  eight  that  followed  had  told  heavily 
on  his  great  strength.  There  is  some- 
thing very  touching  in  the  manner  with 
which  he  apologized  to  the  soldiers  at 
Newburg  for  using  glasses,  when  he  was 
compelled  to  read  a  document  in  their 
presence.  "  I  am  getting  to  be  an  old 
man,"  he  said.  This  was,  it  appears, 
the  way  in  which  he  began  to  regard 
himself,  though  he  had  not,  in  reality, 
yet  crossed  his  fifty-second  birthday. 

Nineteen  days  after  the  Commander- 
in-Chief  had  parted  with  his  officers  in 
New  York,  another  memorable  scene 
took  place.  This  was  at  Annapolis, 
when,  with  a  few  simple  and  noble 
words,  Washington  surrendered  his  com- 
mand to  Congress,  and  asked  permission 
to  retire  from  the  service  of  his  country. 


The   Commander -in-Chief.         205 

A  large  audience  witnessed  that  event 
with  breathless  interest.  The  President 
of  Congress,  who  accepted  the  resigna- 
tion, closed  his  address  with  a  prophecy: 
"  The  glory  of  your  virtues  will  descend 
to  remotest  generations ! " 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

THE    PEACE. 

THE  next  day  Washington  started  for 
his  beloved  Mount  Vernon.  He  reached 
it  that  night.  It  was  Christmas  Eve. 
Perhaps  all  that  had  gone  before  did 
not  seem  too  heavy  a  price  to  pay  for 
the  rest  and  joy  with  which  he  kept  the 
ancient  holiday  under  his  own  roof-tree ; 
while  he  thought  how  a  free  nation,  for 
the  first  time,  could  keep  the  festival 
with  him. 

He  took  up  the  old  life  with  the  old 
zest.  The  highest  ambition  of  the  man 
who  had  won  the  liberties  of  America 
was,  to  use  his  own  grandly  simple 


The  Peace.  207 

words,    "to    be    a    farmer    and    live    an 
honest  man." 

He  resumed  his  old  ways  of  living, 
although,  during  the  winter  of  unusual 
rigor  which  followed  his  return,  he  was 
literally  "  snow-bound "  at  Mount  Ver- 
non.  His  military  habits  still  clung  to 
him,  and  on  awakening  in  the  morning 
he  would  find  himself  listening  for  the 
reveille  of  the  camp.  But  with  the  re- 
turn of  spring  he  was  engrossed  with 
the  management  of  his  estate.  This 
demanded  all  his  time  and  energies,  as 
Mount  Vernon  showed,  in  almost  every 
department,  the  long  absence  of  its 
proprietor.  Washington  set  himself  at 
work  to  repair  the  injuries  his  domain 
had  undergone,  to  improve  the  buildings, 
and  to  beautify  the  grounds.  He  had 
great  enjoyment  in  laying  these  out 


208     Life  of  George   Washington. 

with  ornamental  shrubs  and  hedges,  in 
trailing  ivies,  and  planting  holly  bushes. 
He  also  had  much  delight  in  setting 
out  trees,  of  which  he  was  almost  as 
great  a  lover — in  a  different  way — as 
Wordsworth. 

The  days  seem  to  wear  again  the 
idyllic  charm  of  his  youth.  He  could 
not  have  felt  that  he  was  an  old  man,  as  he 
rode  in  the  mornings,,  still  full  of  health 
and  vigor,  about  Mount  Vernon. 

But  he  had  to  pay  the  price  of  his 
fame.  The  world  would  not  leave  the 
deliverer  of  America  alone  in  his  con- 
genial retirement.  A  constant  stream 
of  guests  now  flowed  to  his  door. 
They  consumed  his  time  and  were  a 
heavy  tax  on  his  resources,  which  had 
been  seriously  strained  during  the  war. 
Washington's  guests  met  with  the  sim- 


The  Peace,  209 

pie,  dignified  courtesy  characteristic  of 
their  host.  Yet  there  is  a  touch  of  his 
native  shrewd  humor  in  his  manner 
of  alluding  to  those  who  now  crowded 
his  board.  "They  say,"  he  writes, 
"they  come  out  of  respect  to  me. 
Would  not  the  word  curiosity  do  as 
well  ?  " 

During  the  three  years  which  fol- 
lowed the  close  of  the  Revolution — 
years  which  Washington  spent  under 
his  own  roof — he  was  not  free  from 
anxieties.  His  most  earnest  thought 
was  still  for  his  country.  In  his  retire- 
ment he  watched  the  progress  of  her 
affairs  with  profound  solicitude.  There 
was  much  in  the  condition  of  America 
to  give  him  intense  anxiety.  The 
young  nation  had  entered  on  an  ex- 
periment so  vast  that  her  wisest  states- 
14 


2io     Life  of  George   Washington. 

men  might  well  recoil  at  the  task  be- 
fore them.  Everything  was  tentative  in 
the  organization  and  policy  of  the  new 
government.  The  "Thirteen  States" 
were  no  longer  bound  together  by  the 
pressure  of  a  common  peril.  The  tie 
that  had  held  them  in  war  proved  too 
feeble  for  peace.  The  Confederacy 
framed  by  the  second  Congress,  and 
from  which  so  much  was  hoped  for 
America  and  for  humanity,  proved,  in 
its  practical  workings,  a  failure. 

This  became  so  apparent  at  last,  and 
the  condition  of  affairs  grew  so  disas- 
trous, that  it  became  evident  that  the 
only  salvation  of  the  country  was  in  a 
change  of  government.  A  convention, 
composed  of  delegates  from  all  the 
States,  was  summoned  to  meet  in  Phil- 
adelphia. To  that  famous  convention 


The  Peace.  2 1 1 

the  United  States  of  America  owe  their 
Constitution. 

The  greatest  man  in  the  nation  could 
not  fail  to  be  required  at  this  crisis. 
Every  eye  was  turned  to  Mount  Ver- 
non.  Virginia  placed  him  at  the  head 
of  the  delegates  whom  she  sent  to  the 
convention.  Washington  accepted  the 
nomination  with  extreme  reluctance,  but 
the  dangers  of  the  time  left  him  no 
choice.  He  repaired  to  Philadelphia,  to 
find  himself  once  more  in  the  thick  of 
public  life.  On  the  first  sitting  of  the 
convention,  May  25,  1788,  he  was 
unanimously  appointed  President. 

The  long,  memorable  summer  passed 
away.  Washington's  presence  and  in- 
fluence were,  no  doubt,  a  controlling 
power  in  all  the  measures  of  that  con- 
vention. In  September  the  great  work 


212      Life  of  George   Washington. 

was  finished,  and  the  Constitution  was 
given  to  the  world. 

The  course  of  affairs  now  only  per- 
mitted him  a  brief  return  to  his  home. 
In  the  following  spring  he  was  elected 
President  of  the  United  States. 

That  high  office  had  no  attractions 
for  him ;  but  his  friends  spared  no 
argument  or  entreaties  to  induce  him 
to  accept  it.  Their  appeals  to  his  sense 
of  duty  were  at  last  crowned  with  suc- 
cess, and  he  took  on  his  waxing  years 
and  waning  strength  the  heavy  burden 
which  inhered  in  the  title. 

Before  he  set  out  for  New  York,  then 
the  seat  of  government,  he  visited  his 
mother  in  her  simple  home  at  Freder- 
icksburg.  The  meeting  must  have  been 
full  of  tender,  solemn  feeling  for  both. 
She  was  very  proud  of  her  illustrious 


The  Peace.  213 

son,  but  she  never  manifested  any  ela- 
tion over  his  success.  She  was  an  in- 
valid at  the  time,  and  that  meeting 
proved  their  last  one. 

Washington's  journey  to  New  York 
was  like  the  progress  of  a  beloved  sov- 
ereign through  his  dominions.  Wher- 
ever he  appeared  the  belts  rang,  the 
cannon  roared,  and  crowds  thronged 
the  highways  with  welcoming  huzzas. 

But  no  scene  in  the  eventful  journey 
made  so  deep  an  impression  as  the  one 
at  Trenton,  where  the  historic  "tri- 
umphal arch "  spanned  the  bridge.  It 
was  a  sunny  afternoon  when  Washing- 
ton, on  the  way  to  his  inauguration, 
reached  the  banks  of  the  Delaware. 
The  terrible  night,  twelve  years  before, 
when,  in  the  darkest  moment  of  his 
country's  fortunes,  he  crossed  the  river 


214      Life  of  George   Washington. 

amid  the  bitter  cold,  the  blinding  snow, 
the  drifting  ice,  must  have  risen  before 
him.  And  now  crowds  of  fair  women 
had  gathered  in  the  pleasant  April 
afternoon,  to  honor  the  Father  of  his 
Country.  Young  girls,  dressed  in 
•white,  and  lovely  as  the  garlands  that 
crowned  them,  strewed  flowers  and  sang 
songs  before  him.  Those  two  scenes 
on  the  Delaware — the  wild,  black  mid- 
night, with  its  storming  winds  and 
blinding  snows,  and  the  smiling  spring 
day,  with  the  shouting  crowds  and  the 
joyous,  flower-decked  maidens  —  must 
have  hung  forever  afterward,  companion 
pieces,  in  his  memory. 

The  inauguration  took  place  in  New 
York  on  the  last  day  of  April,  1789. 
Nothing  of  the  kind  had  ever  occurred 
in  America.  The  scene  was  one  of 


The  Peace.  215 

breathless  interest  to  the  vast  crowds 
who  witnessed  it.  It  was  a  solemn  mo- 
ment for  the  country,  when  her  victori- 
ous General,  who,  at  the  close  of  the 
war,  had,  with  stern  indignation,  refused 
the  crown  his  army  was  eager  to  place 
on  his  head,  came  out  on  the  balcony, 
laid  his  hand  on  the  Bible  and  took  his 
oath  of  office. 

Streets  and  windows  and  roofs  of 
houses,  were  crowded  with  spectators. 
Washington  wore,  the  chronicles  tell  us, 
"  a  full  suit  of  dark  brown  cloth  of 
American  manufacture,  with  a  steel- 
hilted  dress-sword,  white  silk  stockings, 
and  silver  shoe-buckles."  As  we  read 
this,  we  are  reminded  that  it  all  hap- 
pened a  hundred  years  ago.  When  the 
oath  was  spoken,  the  folds  of  a  flag 
suddenly  floated  from  the  great  cupola. 


216      Life  of  George    Washington. 

At  that  signal,  the  artillery  thundered 
from  the  battery,  and  George  Wash- 
ington was  President  of  the  United 
States. 

The  great  soldier  had  now  entered 
upon  a  new  field.  It  remained  to  be 
proved  whether  those  qualities  which 
had  shone  so  conspicuous  in  the  camp, 
would  be  equally  successful  in  the  cabi- 
net. Difficulties  surrounded  the  new 
President.  A  system  of  government 
was  on  its  trial.  Washington  had  no 
precedents,  no  traditions,  to  guide  him. 
The  new  Constitution  had  encountered 
the  most  vehement  opposition,  and  some 
of  the  States  had  reluctantly,  and  with 
very  small  majorities,  consented  to  ac- 
cept it. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE    FIRST    PRESIDENT   OF  THE   UNITED 

STATES. 

ALL  sorts  of  new  duties  and  relations 
pressed  upon  the  President.  Not  the 
smallest  of  these  were  the  social  ones. 
At  the  beginning,  as  was  to  be  ex- 
pected, crowds  of  company  made  terri- 
ble inroads  upon  the  precious  time 
which  was  needed  for  public  affairs. 

The  arrival  of  Mrs.  Washington  was 
a  great  relief  at  this  juncture.  She 
came  to  share  the  honors  and  cares  of 
her  husband's  new  position,  as  she  had 
gone  before  to  the  hardships  of  the 
camp,  to  the  miseries  of  Valley  Forge. 


218     Life  of  George   Washington. 

She  used  often  to  say  that  "  it  had 
been  her  fortune  to  hear  the  first  can- 
non at  the  opening,  and  the  last  at  the 
closing,  of  the  campaign." 

The  position  on  which  she  entered 
now  as  the  first  lady  of  the  nation,  as 
the  representative  of  American  woman- 
hood, was  a  wholly  novel  one,  and  must 
have  had  many  trials  and  embarrass- 
ments for  the  wife  of  our  first  Presi- 
dent. It  is  not  unlikely  that  she  some- 
times sighed,  amid  her  new  dignities,  for 
the  old  rough  camp  times,  with  all  their 
limitations  and  makeshifts.  There  is 
something  significant  in  her  habit  of 
alluding  to  her  days  of  public  ceremo- 
nials as  "  lost  days." 

But  Martha  Washington  was  equal  to 
the  occasion,  whether  that  summoned 
her  to  the  soldier's  hut  or  the  Presi- 


The  First  President.  219 

dent's  home.  Some  simple,  noble  words 
which  she  wrote  in  New  York,  in  the 
winter  of  1789,  deserve  a  place  here. 
There  is  the  ring  of  a  true  woman's 
feeling  in  every  line : 

"  I  am  still  determined  to  be  cheerful 
and  happy  in  whatever  situation  I  may 
be ;  for  I  have  also  learned  from  expe- 
rience that  the  greater  part  of  our  hap- 
piness or  misery  depends  on  our  dispo- 
sitions and  not  on  our  circumstances. 
We  carry  the  seeds  of  the  one  or  the 
other  about  with  us,  wherever  we  go." 

The  wife  who  could  write  such  words, 
and  live  them,  must  have  been  a  source 
of  unspeakable  strength  and  comfort  to 
her  husband,  amid  all  his  various  public 
service,  at  the  head  of  armies  or  as  the 
chief  of  the  nation. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  a  great  habit 


220     Life  of  George   Washington. 

of  absent-mindedness  grew  upon  Wash- 
ington. He  was  not  always  aware  when 
his  wife  addressed  him.  A  little  story 
has  survived,  which  happily  illustrates 
their  domestic  relations.  When  the  wife 
found  her  husband  in  one  of  his  fits  of 
abstraction,  and  wished  to  arrest  his  at- 
tention, it  became  her  habit  to  take 
hold  of  one  of  his  coat  buttons.  This 
action  never  failed  to  arouse  him.  He 
would  stand  still,  giving  her  his  undi- 
vided attention,  a  pleased,  tender  look 
in  his  eyes,  as  he  gazed  down  on  the 
face,  and  listened  to  the  voice  that  was 
sweetest  to  him  on  earth. 

During  the  first  summer  of  his  admin- 
istration the  President  had  a  severe  ill- 
ness. It  lasted  six  weeks.  His  oak- 
and-iron  constitution  at  last  triumphed 
over  it.  But  it  is  doubtful  whether  his 


The  First  President.  221 

health  was  not  permanently  shaken  at 
this  time. 

The  multitude  of  questions  which 
faced  him  on  his  recovery  was  enough 
to  perplex  the  wisest,  most  far-seeing 
statesman.  The  young  republic,  at 
whose  head  he  stood,  saw  its  finances 
impoverished,  its  frontiers  insecure,  its 
foreign  commerce  in  a  most  disastrous 
condition. 

Washington  faced  the  situation  with 
the  old  courage  of  the  soldier.  He 
formed  his  Cabinet,  he  exerted  all  his 
influence  to  allay  the  jealousies  of  par- 
ties, the  dissensions  of  Congress  —  for 
the  tomahawk,  buried  for  awhile,  was  at 
its  old  work  among  the  northwestern 
settlements. 

It  would  require  volumes  to  furnish 
an  adequate  history  of  the  four  years 


222      Life  of  George   Washington. 

of  Washington's  first  administration. 
And  while  he  was  in  the  thick  of  the 
struggle,  and  growing  old  there,  the 
harvests  were  ripening  in  the  pleasant 
Virginia  summers  about  Mount  Vernon, 
and  he  was  looking  to  the  close  of 
those  four  years'  service  with  something 
of  the  eager  longing  of  a  prisoner  to 
the  day.  of  his  release. 

But  his  anticipations  were  not  to  be 
realized.  His  country  made  her  supreme 
voice  heard  again.  She  demanded,  in 
the  name  of  her  new  liberties,  and  her 
present  perils,  the  re-election  of  her 
first  President.  After  a  bitter  conflict 
with  himself,  Washington  again  bowed 
his  head  to  the  yoke,  and  consented  to 
retain  his  office  for  another  four  years. 

These  were  crowded  for  him  with 
great  and  unlooked-for  events.  The 


The  First  President.  223 

most  tremendous  was  the  French  Rev- 
olution. That  mighty  upheaval  of  all 
the  social,  political,  and  religious  tradi- 
tions of  centuries  not  only  convulsed 
Europe,  but  made  a  powerful  vibration 
on  our  own  shores.  It  was  widely 
insisted  that  the  American  Revolution 
had  paved  the  way  for  the  French  one. 
No  one  could  question  that  the  former 
had  had  an  immense  influence  on  the 
latter.  We  were  bound  to  France  by 
many  grateful  memories  and  associa- 
tions. She  had  acknowledged  the  inde- 
pendence of,  and  entered  into  a  treaty 
with  the  American  republic,  before  it 
had  a  recognized  existence  among  the 
nations.  She  had  robbed  her  own  scant 
treasury  to  replenish  our  empty  one. 
Her  officers  had  drawn  their  swords  in 
our  cause.  Her  army  and  her  navy  had 


224     -Life  °f  George   Washington. 

joined  our  forces,  and  compelled  the  sur- 
render of  Lord  Cornwallis,  on  the  day 
that  established  the  independence  of 
the  United  States.  The  young  Lafay- 
ette had  made  himself  dear  to  every 
American. 

The  progress  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion had  been  watched  with  intense 
solicitude  in  America.  When  the  Bas- 
tile  fell — when  the  key  of  that  ancient 
prison-fortress  -had  been  sent  by  Lafay- 
ette to  Washington — one  impulse  thrilled 
the  heart  of  the  nation.  There  was  a 
passionate  sympathy  for  France  in  her 
heroic  resolve  to  cast  off  the  yoke  that 
had  oppressed  her  for  ages.  But  as 
months  rolled  on,  and  fresh  tidings 
crossed  the  sea,  of  the  risings  of  the 
mob,  of  the  massacres  of  September,  of 
the  beheading  of  the  king,  of  the 


The  First  President.  225 

deadly  work  of  the  guillotine,  the 
wildest  excitement  shook  America. 
The  interest  in  the  affairs  of  France 
superseded  every  other.  Parties  were 
formed.  Crowds  gathered  on  the  cor- 
ners of  the  streets  and  talked  the  Red 
Republicanism  which  the  fierce  mobs  of 
St.  Antoine  were  shouting. 

But  the  popular  excitement  reached 
its  climax  when  France,  after  sending 
Louis  XVI.  to  the  guillotine,  pro- 
claimed war  against  England.  Amer- 
ica's duty  at  this  crisis  became  the 
supreme  question  of  the  hour.  "Was 
she  now,"  asked  the  French  party,  with 
fierce  indignation,  "to  stand  coldly 
aloof  and  watch  the  struggle  between 
her  ancient  foe  and  that  France  who, 
in  the  hour  of  her  utmost  peril,  had  so 

generously    sprung     to    her     defense  ? " 
15 


226     Life  of  George   Washington. 

Gratitude,  sympathy,  common  principles 
and  aims,  would,  it  appeared,  force  us 
to  take  the  side  of  France.  Swept 
away  by  the  excitement  of  the  time,  a 
large  party  in  the  nation  insisted  on 
declaring  war  with  England. 

At  this  crisis  the  great  qualities  of 
the  statesman  shone  out  conspicuous  as 
the  soldier's  had  at  the  head  of  armies. 
Washington,  unmoved  by  the  passions 
of  the  hour,  decided  on  neutrality. 
Time  has  absolutely  vindicated  the  wis- 
dom of  this  decision ;  but,  at  that 
epoch,  it  greatly  shook  his  popularity. 
Public  feeling,  in  many  instances,  set 
strongly  against  him.  He,  who  had 
given  such  transcendent  proofs  of  his 
patriotism,  was  accused  of  a  secret  de- 
sire to  establish  a  monarchy.  With  all 
his  large- mindedness,  he  was  acutely 


The  First  President.  227 

sensitive  to  public  opinion.  The  respon- 
sibilities of  that  time,  with  the  cruel 
slanders  that  filled  the  air,  wore  heavily 
upon  his  health  and  spirits.  His  splen- 
did self-control  occasionally  broke  down. 
He  once  solemnly  declared  that  he 
would  "rather  be  in  his  grave  than 
President  of  the  United  States." 

Fresh  anxieties  and  complications  fol- 
lowed the  arrival  of  the  young  Genet, 
the  minister  whom  the  French  republic 
had  sent  to  the  United  States.  He 
arrived,  confident  of  the  sympathy  and 
support  of  America.  Received  by 
shouting  thousands,  welcomed  with 
feasts  and  ovations,  he  was  little  dis- 
posed to  regard  the  proclamation  of 
neutrality.  He  had  landed  at  Charles- 
ton. In  his  short  sojourn  there  he 
showed  his  temper  by  "  issuing  commis- 


228     Life  of  George   Washington. 

sions  for  arming  and  equipping  vessels 
of  war,  and  manning  these  with  Amer- 
ican seamen,  to  serve  against  the  West 
Indies  !  " 

Washington  displayed  great  forbear- 
ance under  these  provocations.  But  the 
young,  hot-headed  minister,  used  to  re- 
cent French  methods  of  dealing  with 
authorities,  and  believing  himself  sure 
of  popular  support,  was  bent  on  carry- 
ing out  his  own  plans,  regardless  of  all 
proclamations  of  neutrality. 

The  President  saw  that  prompt  and 
powerful  measures  were  imperative,  if 
he  would  not  see  his  country  plunged 
into  a  foreign  war.  It  was  a  critical 
moment.  Genet  retorted  passionately 
when  Washington  interfered.  France 
naturally  resented  the  neutrality,  which 
appeared  so  ungrateful  a  return  of  her 


The  First  President.  229 

past  services.  England  scored  up  heavy 
grievances  against  us. 

No  doubt  the  course  of  Washington 
at  this  juncture,  surprised  and  pained 
many  sincere  lovers  of  their  country. 
The  old  revolutionary  memories,  the 
sense  of  all  we  owed  to  France,  burned 
in  many  hearts  through  all  that  agi- 
tated summer  of  1793.  It  savored  to 
them  of  black  ingratitude  to  turn  our 
back  on  our  ancient  ally — the  young 
Republic  who  had  just  entered  into  the 
struggle  with  her  mighty  foe. 

Events  have  justified  Washington's 
course,  and  proved  its  wise,  far-seeing 
statesmanship.  But  it  is  not  impossible 
that  temperament  had  some  influence 
over  his  convictions  at  this  crisis.  With 
all  his  intense  love  of  liberty,  there  was 
a  side  of  his  nature  which  was  strongly 


230      Life  of  George   Washington. 

conservative,  and  this  side,  as  well  as 
his  feelings,  must  have  recoiled  at  the 
terrible  cruelties  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. 

The  death  of  Louis  XVI.  and  Marie 
Antoinette  had  been  a  great  shock  to 
Washington.  During  the  last  years  of 
the  Revolution,  surprisingly  familiar  and 
pleasant  relations  had,  through  the  in- 
fluence of  Lafayette,  existed  between  the 
young  French  sovereigns  and  the  Ameri- 
can Commander-in-Chief.  The  King,  his 
own  treasury  bankrupt,  had  still  man- 
aged to  transmit  finances  to  our  impov- 
erished armies.  When  the  Marquis,  on 
his  return  to  France,  presented  himself 
at  court,  the  Queen  said  to  him,  in  her 
gay,  joyous  manner,  "  Give  me  good 
news  of  our  good  Americans,  of  our 
dear  republicans ! " 


The  First  President.  231 

She  was  the  beautiful,  happy  Marie 
Antoinette  of  the  Tuileries  and  of  "Lit- 
tle Trianon  "  when  she  said  that.  One 
seems  to  see  it  all — the  splendid  court, 
the  lovely  young  Queen,  the  stately 
young  Marquis  at  his  audience,  and, 
hovering  in  the  background,  the  specter 
of  the  guillotine,  the  shadow  of  the 
dungeon  of  Olmiitz  ! 

Dangers  thickened  about  the  path  of 
the  administration.  In  Pennsylvania  the 
discontent  at  last  broke  into  open  riots. 
A  military  force  of  fifteen  thousand  men 
was  raised.  They  entered  the  western 
counties.  Their  presence  spread  wide 
terror  among  the  insurgents.  The  nas- 
cent rebellion,  which,  a  little  later,  might 
have  become  a  civil  war,  was  extin- 
guished without  bloodshed. 

Differences,   personal    and  political,  in 


232      Life  of  George   Washington. 

the  Cabinet  threatened  its  dissolution, 
and  vastly  augmented  the  President's 
anxieties  at  this  period.  The  Indians 
continued  their  ravages  along  the  west- 
ern frontier.  England's  behavior  inflamed 
the  popular  feeling.  The  frequent  im- 
pressment of  American  seamen,  the  fail- 
ure of  the  government  to  give  up  the 
posts  at  the  south  of  the  lakes,  accord- 
ing to  treaty,  were  all  deeply  resented 
in  America. 

Washington  faced  all  these  difficulties 
at  home  and  abroad  with  his  tried  sa- 
gacity and  his  large  moral  courage. 
His  influence  proved  powerful  enough 
to  keep  the  Cabinet  from  dissolution. 
The  French  Government  at  last  listened 
to  America's  representations,  and  con- 
sented to  recall  its  minister.  The 
United  States,  in  its  turn,  dispatched 


The  First  President.  233 

James  Monroe  to  France.  He  was  re- 
ceived with  open  arms  by  the  Assem- 
bly, as  he  was  well  known  to  be  in 
sympathy  with  the  Republic. 

Affairs  had  grown  comparatively 
smooth  before  the  close  of  Washington's 
second  administration.  There  was  a 
universal  desire  that  he  would  consent 
to  serve  another  term.  This  desire  had 
its  root  in  the  feeling  that  the  liberties 
of  the  country  were  only  safe  while  he 
stood  at  the  helm.  Every  argument 
and  entreaty — the  agitation  at  home, 
the  warlike  aspect  of  Europe  —  were 
brought  forward  to  induce  him  to  re- 
main at  his  post.  But  Washington 
was  inexorable.  The  great  soul,  the 
strong  frame,  had  grown  tired  at  last. 
They  needed  now  the  home  of  his 
youth,  the  familiar  scenes,  the  rest  and 


234     Life  of  George   Washington. 

comfort  of  tranquil  days  at  Mount 
Vernon. 

All  his  letters  at  this  period  bear  pa- 
thetic evidence  of  this  longing:  "The 
remainder  of  my  life,"  he  wrote  to  his 
old  friend  and  fellow-soldier,  Henry 
Knox,  "which,  in  the  course  of  nature, 
cannot  be  long,  will  be  occupied  in 
rural  amusements ;  I  shall  seclude  my- 
self as  much  as  possible  from  the  noisy 
and  bustling  world."  He  adds  an  earn- 
est desire  to  see  his  friends  at  Mount 
Vernon,  "more  than  twenty  miles  from 
which,  after  I  arrive  there,  it  is  not 
likely  that  I  shall  ever  be." 

John  Adams  was  elected  second  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States.  On  the  $d 
of  March,  1797,  Washington  gave  a  fare- 
well dinner.  Many  distinguished  per- 
sons were  present,  among  whom  were 


The  First  President.  235 

conspicuous    the  new  President    and   his 
wife. 

There  was  a  great  deal  of  hilarity  at 
the  feast.  But  when  the  cloth  was  re- 
moved, and  Washington  said,  in  his 
quiet,  impressive  tones,  "  Ladies  and 
gentlemen,  this  is  the  last  time  I  shall 
drink  your  health  as  a  public  man," 
the  gayety  came  to  a  sudden  end.  Each 
guest  at  the  board  felt  the  solemn 
meaning  for  America  of  those  words. 
The  clouds  had  not  vanished  from  the 
political  horizon.  There  was  still  much 
in  the  outlook  to  fill  the  heart  of  every 
lover  of  his  country  with  doubt  and 
foreboding ;  and  the  pilot  who  had 
guided  the  ship  through  so  many  storms 
was  about  to  leave  the  helm.  Amid  such 
thoughts  the  close  of  the  feast  could  not 
fail  to  be  a  sad  one. 


236      Life  of  George    Washington. 

On  the  following-  day  the  adminis- 
tration of  George  Washington  came  to 
an  end.  As  he  left  Congress  Hall,  a 
vast  crowd  followed  him  to  his  home, 
eager  for  another  look  at  that  beloved 
countenance.  He  turned  and  waved  his 
hat  while  they  cheered ;  the  calm  face 
was  radiant  at  that  moment ;  the  gray 
hair  streamed  in  the  March  wind.  But 
when  he  reached  his  own  door  there 
was  a  swift  change — sadness  gathered 
over  his  face,  tears  blinded  his  eyes, 
and  our  first  President  made  his  fare- 
well to  the  people,  and  went  back  to 
his  private  life,  with  a  simple  gesture. 


CHAPTER    XV. 

THE    GRAND,  SIMPLE    LIFE  I     THE    SUN   TURN- 
ING   WESTWARD. 

As  soon  as  possible,  Washington  set 
out  for  Mount  Vernon.  His  wife  and 
her  granddaughter  accompanied  him. 
With  them,  also,  rode  a  young  stranger, 
who,  though  a  foreigner,  bore  the  name 
of  his  host.  When  the  dangers  thick- 
ened about  his  house,  George  Wash- 
ington Lafayette  had  been  sent  by  his 
father  to  his  old  Commander-in-Chief. 

The  Austrian  dungeon  of  Olmutz  had, 
through  those  terrible  years,  saved  La- 
fayette's head  from  the  guillotine.  We 
know  how  Washington's  heart  had 
grieved  for  his  friend — what  vain  efforts 


238      Life  of  George   Washington. 

he  had  made  for  his  release.  He  felt  a 
father's  interest  in  the  boy  who  bore 
his  name,  and  whom  so  mournful  a  fate 
had  bequeathed  to  his  love  and  care. 
He  could  not  look  at  the  youth  without 
being  reminded  of  the  day,  long  ago, 
when,  dining  in  Philadelphia  with  his 
officers,  he  first  met  the  young  Mar- 
quis, who  had  left  his  splendid  home 
and  crossed  the  winter  seas,  to  offer  his 
services  to  the  cause  of  American  free- 
dom. 

That  was  the  beginning  of  the  long,  in- 
timate friendship  which  existed  between 
the  American  General  and  the  young 
French  nobleman.  Differences  of  age, 
of  nationality,  of  temperament,  of  early 
training,  only  seemed  to  augment  the 
affection  with  which  the  two  men  re- 
garded each  other.  Their  friendship 


The  Grand,  Simple  Life.         239 

lights  up  the  long,  rugged  years  of  the 
Revolution  with  many  a  tender  episode. 
Their  affection  strengthened  the  souls  of 
each  in  many  a  bitter  hour.  The  en- 
thusiastic loyalty  of  his  young  friend 
was  doubly  precious  to  Washington  in 
those  cruel  moments  when  some  of  his 
own  generals  failed  him.  In  his  Aus- 
trian dungeon,  Lafayette  must  have 
solaced  many  hours  of  his  captivity  in 
thoughts  of  Washington,  in  memories 
of  Mount  Vernon,  where  he  had  been 
such  a  beloved  and  honored  guest. 

Once  more  Washington  took  up  the 
old  life  with  greater  zest  than  ever. 
Again  he  might  be  seen  on  horseback 
in  the  early  mornings,  riding  about  the 
grounds,  giving  his  orders,  supervising 
his  workmen,  inspecting  improvements, 
and  planning  others,  while  he  watched 


240     Life  of  George   Washington. 

the  Virginia  spring  grow  into  summer 
over  the  wide  landscape. 

"  I  had  rather  live  on  a  farm  than  be 
the  Emperor  of  the  world ! "  he  had 
once  exclaimed.  "And  yet  they  are 
charging  me  with  wanting  to  be  a 
King ! " 

But  it  was  not  altogether  paradise  at 
Mount  Vernon.  Though  this  was  re- 
mote from  towns  and  hotels,  guests  from 
all  parts  of  the  world,  drawn  hither  by 
various  motives,  poured  in  upon  the 
illustrious  host,  consumed  his  time,  and 
were  a  heavy  strain  upon  resources 
that  had  been  greatly  diminished. 

Washington  began  to  perceive  the 
need,  at  this  time,  of  some  person  who 
could  relieve  him  from  a  share  of  the 
burdens  which  these  constant  visitors 
imposed.  He  had  a  young  nephew, 


The  Grand,  Simple  Life.         241 

who  bore  the  beloved  name  of  Law- 
rence—  a  favorite  with  Washington — 
whom  he  invited  to  his  home,  and 
whose  services  in  the  role  of  host 
greatly  relieved  his  uncle. 

With  this  nephew  and  young  Lafayette 
and  his  tutor,  and  Mrs.  Washington's 
pretty  granddaughter,  who  was  a  great 
pet  with  her  future  uncle,  for  she  after- 
ward married  the  nephew,  there  must 
have  been  a  great  deal  of  gay  young 
life  about  the  ancient  rooms  and  halls. 
Here  came,  to  share  this  life  for  awhile, 
in  his  strange,  romantic  exile,  the  Duke 
of  Orleans,  Louis  Philippe,  afterward  King 
of  France. 

Indeed,  Mount  Vernon  was  the  resort 
of  all  sorts  of  distinguished  and  historic 
persons,  during  the  last  years  of  its 
owner. 

16 


242      Life  of  George   Washington. 

The  autumn  after  Washington's  return 
home  he  was  gladdened  by  tidings  that 
Lafayette  had  been  released  from  his 
long  captivity,  and  was  on  his  way  to 
Paris.  His  son,  eager  to  rejoin  his  fa- 
ther and  his  family,  sailed  for  home  soon 
afterward. 

But  it  was  not  Washington's  fortune 
to  long  enjoy  his  hardly  earned  rest. 
War  clouds  again  loomed  threatening 
above  the  horizon.  This  time  they 
appeared  in  a  new  quarter  of  the  sky. 
The  French  Government — its  temper 
grown  irritable  and  exacting — refused  to 
receive  the  American  minister  who  suc- 
ceeded Monroe.  Three  special  envoys 
had  been  sent  by  President  Adams  to 
France,  with  the  hope  that  a  mutual 
treaty  would  adjust  all  disputes  between 
the  two  governments.  The  envoys  had 


The  Grand,  Simple  Life.        243 

not  found  it  possible  to  come  to  any 
agreement.  The  Directory  was  confident 
that  the  ancient  relations  of  France 
with  America  would  prevent  a  war,  and 
passed  measures  which  struck  a  deadly 
blow  at  American  commerce. 

These  high-handed  acts  were  the  sig- 
nal for  a  storm  of  indignation  which 
swept  through  the  land.  Ancient  ties 
yielded  before  the  sense  of  present  in- 
justice. It  seemed  for  awhile  that  war 
was  inevitable  between  France  and 
America. 

President  Adams  was  empowered  to 
raise  an  army  of  ten  thousand  men. 
There  was  only  one  man  whom  the 
nation  would  consent  to  place  at  the 
head  of  that  army. 

The  Secretary  of  War  carried  in  per- 
son the  commission  to  Washington  which 


244     Life  of  George   Washington. 

made  him  "Commander-in-Chief  of  all 
the  armies  raised  or  to  be  raised." 

So  the  old  dream  of  a  happy,  tranquil 
evening  of  life  was  rudely  broken  !  The 
gray-haired  soldier  heard  once  more  the 
summons  that  had  thrilled  his  heart  in 
his  youth,  and  he  prepared  to  answer 
again  the  call  of  his  country. 

But  his  reluctance  to  do  this  was  so 
great  that  he  only  yielded  on  the  con- 
dition that  "  he  should  not  be  called 
into  the  field  until  the  army  required  his 
presence  there." 

It  soon  became  imperative  that  he 
should  leave  Mount  Vernon  again. 
Weeks  followed  that  must  have  told 
heavily  on  his  waning  vigor.  He  was 
obliged  to  superintend  the  organization 
of  the  new  army,  to  appoint  its  officers, 
to  attend  to  infinite  details,  and  to  bear, 


The  Grand,  Simple  Life.        245 

as  he  could,  the  old  wearisome  burden 
of  military  cares.  He  did  all  this,  too, 
with  his  native  scrupulous  thoroughness. 

The  attitude  of  America  now  pro- 
duced its  effect.  It  became  evident  to 
the  most  arrogant  member  of  the  Direc- 
tory that  the  American  people  were  re- 
solved on  sustaining  their  government. 
France  receded  from  her  first  position. 
It  was  gracefully  intimated  to  President 
Adams  that  his  representative  should 
be  received  "  with  the  respect  due  a 
free,  independent,  and  powerful  nation." 

So  the  clouds  rolled  away  from  the 
horizon,  and  all  America  must  have 
drawn  a  breath  of  relief  as  they  disap- 
peared. 

Washington    returned    once    more    to 

o 

Mount  Vernon.  Busy,  crowded  days 
awaited  him  there.  He  had  a  vast  cor- 


246     Life  of  George    Washington. 

respondence  on  army  and  other  matters. 
Each  day  he  passed  hours  in  his  study, 
and  other  hours  in  a  personal  super- 
vision of  his  estate,  and  an  attempt  to 
bring  its  varied  affairs  into  order.  He 
dined  out  occasionally.  He  received,  as 
always,  many  guests  under  his  own  roof, 
guests  that  not  only  included  his  own 
countrymen,  but  many  distinguished  for- 
eigners, who,  visiting  the  Republic,  were 
naturally  curious  to  behold  its  most 
illustrious  citizen.  His  fine  health,  his 
vigorous  activity,  were  sources  of  con- 
stant congratulation  among  his  friends. 

He  who  had  so  long  moved  at  the 
head  of  armies  was  still  seen,  in  the 
early  mornings,  riding,  with  the  old  mili- 
tary stateliness  about  Mount  Vernon, 
while  the  thin  gray  hair  shone  about 
the  fine,  calm  face.  The  eighteenth  cent- 


The  Grand,  Simple  Life.        247 

ury  had  entered  upon  its  last  month, 
and  George  Washington  was  saying  to 
himself  that  he  was  drawing  near  his 
sixty-eighth  birthday. 

His  own  land  and  the  nations  afar  off 
were  praising  him.  That  consciousness 
could  not  fail  to  give  him  pleasure. 
The  approval  of  the  wise  and  good  had 
always  been  precious  to  him. 

It  is  pleasant  now  to  feel  that  that 
last  year  must  have  been  full  of  restful 
quiet  and  content  for  him.  He  was  in  the 
one  spot  'on  earth  that  he  loved  best. 
He  was  absorbed  in  those  healthful  ac- 
tivities that  were  a  part  of  himself.  The 
commander  of  armies,  the  deliverer  of  a 
nation,  the  first  President  of  the  Ameri- 
can Republic,  aspired  to  no  loftier  name 
than  that  of  farmer.  The  long,  stormy 
years  now  lay  behind  him ;  he  might 


248     Life  of  George   Washington. 

reasonably  hope  that  some  tranquil  ones 
stretched  before  him.  His  life  had  been 
crowned  with  such  success  as  had  never 
fallen  to  the  lot  of  man.  If  the  liofht 

o 

shone  for  him  in  the  West,  it  was  such 
a  light  as  he  could  never  have  dreamed 
of  when  it  wore  the  radiant  flush' of  the 
dawn. 

Yet  there  is  a  pathetic  significance  in 
the  words  which  Washington  wrote  to 
Lafayette,  fifteen  years  before,  when  the 
two  parted  "on  the  way  to  Annapolis." 

"  I  often  asked  myself,  as  our  carriages 
separated,  whether  that  was  to  be  the 
last  sight  I  should  ever  have  of  you  ? 
And  though  I  wished  to  say  '  no ! '  my 
fears  answered  'yes!'  I  called  to  mind 
the  days  of  my  youth,  and  found  they 
had  long  since  fled,  to  return  no  more ; 
that  I  was  now  descending  the  hill  I 


The  Grand,  Simple  Life.         249 

had  been  fifty-two  years  climbing ;  and 
though  I  was  blessed  with  a  good  con- 
stitution, I  was  of  a  short-lived  family, 
and  might  soon  expect  to  be  entombed 
in  the  mansion  of  my  fathers." 

This  melancholy  of  a  brave  soul,  able 
to  look  its  fate  in  the  face  with  calm- 
ness, recurs  frequently  in  the  talk  and 
correspondence  of  Washington,  during 
the  crowded  fifteen  years  which  fol- 
lowed that  writing.  When  he  comes  to 
speak  of  himself,  a  minor  key  haunts 
the  words.  There  is  a  certain  weariness 
between  the  lines,  as  though  the  writer 
had  grown  tired  with  the  heat  and  bur- 
den of  the  long  day.  There  is  no  touch 
of  despondency  or  despair — no  false  note 
anywhere.  That  voice  always  rings 
true  to  courage  and  cheer,  to  faith 
in  God  and  hope  for  man.  But  you 


250     Life  of  George   Washington. 

feel  that,  at  times,  when  he  withdrew 
into  himself,  he  looked  forward  to  the 
unbroken  slumber  with  a  certain  quiet 
longing — with  an  instinct,  too,  that  the 
end  could  not  be,  for  him,  very  far  off. 
Despite  his  mother's  great  age — she 
had  died  in  the  first  summer  of  his 
presidency — his  own  splendid  health, 
the  Washington  breed,  as  he  had  said 
to  Lafayette,  was  not  a  long-lived  one. 


CHAPTER   XVI. 

TO    THE    END DECEMBER    17,     1799. 

IT  was  on  a  clear,  calm  morning,  as 
the  record  of  1799  runs,  that  Washing- 
ton put  the  finishing  touches  to  an  in- 
strument which  had,  of  late,  engrossed 
much  of  his  time.  This  was  a  folio  of 
thirty  pages,  containing  instructions  to 
his  steward  for  the  management  of 
Mount  Vernon  in  future  years.  The 
whole  folio  was  executed  with  all  that 
scrupulous  neatness  and  detail  with 
which,  in  his  boyhood,  he  had  drawn 
up  his  codes  of  manners  and  morals,  or, 
a  little  later,  made  out  his  surveys  of 
Lord  Fairfax's  estate.  While  he  had 


252      Life  of  George   Washington. 

been  preparing  these  instructions  for 
his  steward,  he  had  appeared  to  those 
about  him  in  perfect  health  and  vigor. 

The  fair  morning  settled  into  a 
cloudy  afternoon,  and  the  next  day 
brought  wind  and  rain,  and  at  night, 
Washington  writes  in  his  diary,  "  a 
large  circle  around  the  moon." 

The  next  morning,  under  the  threat- 
ening skies,  Washington  mounted  his 
horse  about  ten  o'clock,  and  made  the 
usual  rounds  of  his  estate.  A  little 
later,  the  world  was  to  mourn  that  he 
took  that  ride  in  the  rough  weather. 
Many,  too,  would  remember,  with  a 
thrill  of  the  ancient  superstition,  that 
"gray  circle  about  the  moon."  It  must 
have  been  a  long  ride,  for  "about  one 
o'clock  " — he  tells  the  story  himself — 
"it  began  to  snow;  soon  after  to  hail, 


To  the  End — Dec.   17,   1799.      253 

and  then  turned  to  settle  into  a  cold 
rain." 

Washington  did  not  turn  back  for 
the  storm.  He  wore  an  overcoat,  and 
he  who  had  spent  so  much  of  his  youth 
in  wilderness  and  camp,  would  not  be 
easily  alarmed  by  the  weather.  It  must 
have  been  very  wild  though,  for,  on 
his  return  to  the  house,  after  three 
o'clock,  he  thought  the  storm  too 
severe  for  a  servant  to  go  out  with 
the  mails.  The  snowflakes  hung  in  his 
gray  hair ;  but  he  insisted  that  his 
great-coat  "  had  kept  him  dry,  and  sat 
down  to  dinner  without  changing  his 
dress."  Those  who  observed  him  that 
evening  could  not  perceive  any  ill- 
effects  from  the  long  exposure  of  the 
day. 

The    next    morning    it    continued    to 


254     Life  of  George    Washington. 

snow,  and  Washington  could  not  take 
his  usual  ride.  He  began  to  complain 
of  a  sore  throat,  but,  as  it  seems  to 
have  alarmed  nobody,  he  must  have 
made  light  of  it.  When  the  weather 
cleared,  in  the  afternoon,  he  went  out 
to  mark  some  trees  which  he  wished 
cut  down.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the 
earliest  account  of  George  Washington's 
out-door  activity  begins  with  a  tree,  and 
ends  with  one.  When  he  returned  to 
the  house  that  afternoon  he  had  walked 
the  grounds  of  Mount  Vernon  for  the 
last  time. 

As  the  night  came  on,  the  hoarseness, 
which  had  been  apparent  all  day,  in- 
creased. He  was  very  cheerful,  how- 
ever, as  he  sat  in  the  parlor  that  even- 
ing with  his  wife  and  his  secretary,  and 
found  plenty  of  amusement  with  the 


To  the  End — Dec.   17,    1799.      255 

evening  mails.  To  all  suggestions  that 
he  should  do  something  to  relieve  his 
cold,  he  answered,  with  the  soldier's 
hardihood,  "You  know  I  never  take 
anything  for  a  cold;  let  it  go  as  it 
came." 

During  the  night,  however,  his  dis- 
tress became  so  great  as  to  awaken 
Mrs.  Washington,  who  wished  to  sum- 
mon a  servant ;  but  he  would  not  per- 
mit this,  lest  she  herself  should  take 
cold.  No  one,  of  course,  realized  the 
importance  of  prompt  measures  at  this 
time.  No  doubt  Washington  concealed, 
as  far  as  possible,  the  extent  of  his  suf- 
ferings from  his  wife.  He  probably 
still  clung  to  the  belief  that  his  illness 
was  "only  a  cold." 

Day  broke  at  last.  The  secretary 
was  summoned.  He  found  the  General 


256     Life  of  George   Washington. 

breathing  with  difficulty,  and  barely 
able  to  articulate. 

By  this  time  the  household  was 
awake  and  alarmed.  Physicians  were 
remote  from  Mount  Vernon.  At  Wash- 
ington's request,  a  messenger  rode  post- 
haste to  Alexandria,  for  the  old  comrade- 
in-arms  and  life-long  friend,  Dr.  Craik. 

Meanwhile,  they  resorted  to  the  old 
methods  of  the  time — bleedings  and  ex- 
ternal applications.  These  afforded  no 
relief.  In  two  or  three  hours  Dr.  Craik 
was  at  the  bedside,  with  other  physi- 
cians. New  remedies,  with  additional 
bleeding,  were  tried  again. 

But  all  efforts  proved  in  vain.  From 
that  gray  winter's  morning  it  was  a 
swift  but  sure  "descent  to  death." 
The  iron  constitution  did  .  not  yield 
without  struggles  that  prolonged  the 


To  the  End — Dec.   17,   1799.      257 

agony.  The  light  of  that  brief  Decem- 
ber day  was  fading,  when  the  sick  man 
called  Mrs.  Washington  to  his  .  bedside. 
In  a  desk  in  his  room  were  two  wills, 
which  he  desired  her  to  bring  him. 
When  she  returned  with  these  he  ex- 
amined them,  gave  her  one  to  retain, 
and  asked  her  to  burn  the  other. 

With  this  request  George  Washington 
seems  to  have  felt  that  his  last  work 
was  done.  The  death  that  had  passed 
him  by  on  so  many  stormy  battle-fields, 
had  come  now,  sudden  and  stealthy, 
into  the  peace  and  security  of  home. 
But  the  strong  heart,  that  never  faltered 
at  the  summons  of  duty,  that  had  kept, 
through  its  long  life,  the  faith  and 
purity  of  a  little  child,  did  not  falter 
at  the  last. 

There    is    a    touching    simplicity    and 
17 


258      Life  of  George   Washington. 

dignity  about  that  death-bed.  It  seems 
a  fitting  close  to  the  brave,  patient, 
heroic  life.  Only  a  very  small  group 
gathered  in  the  plainly  furnished  room 
— the  broken-hearted  wife,  the  physi- 
cian and  old  friend,  the  trusted  secre- 
tary, and  the  faithful  servant,  watching 
at  the  foot  of  the  bed. 

The  difficulty  of  breathing  made  the 
last  hours  agonizing.  From  the  begin- 
ning, any  attempt  to  swallow  convulsed 
and  almost  suffocated  the  sick  man. 
His  sufferings  made  speech  so  painful 
that  he  did  not  often  attempt  it.  But 
when,  a  little  after  sundown,  Dr.  Craik 
approached  the  bed,  Washington  ad- 
dressed him:  "Doctor,  I  die  hard;  but 
I  am  not  afraid  to  go.  I  believed  from 
my  first  attack  that  I  should  not  sur- 
vive it.  My  breath  cannot  last  long." 


To  the  End — Dec.    17,   1799.     259 

The  doctor  pressed  his  hand,  unable  to 
reply,  and  retired  to  the  fireside,  where 
he  sat  awhile  in  speechless  grief. 

The  strong  mind  held  its  integrity  to 
the  last.  The  old  courage  rings  always 
through  the  gathering  darkness.  But  it 
was  evident  that  Washington  was  tired 
of  the  struggle,  and  waiting  and  long- 
ing for  the  summons  when  "he  would 
answer  to  his  name  and  stand  in  the 
presence  of  his  Maker." 

Though  he  uttered  no  complaint,  the 
dreadful  restlessness,  the  continued  in- 
quiries about  the  time,  told,  better  than 
words,  to  the  anxious  watchers,  the  final 
sufferings. 

When  the  other  physicians,  who  had 
left  the  chamber  awhile,  rejoined  Dr. 
Craik,  Washington  was  assisted  to  sit 
up  in  bed.  "I  feel  I  am  going,"  he 


260     Life  of  George   Washington. 

said.  "I  thank  you  for  your  attentions, 
but  I  pray  you  to  take  no  more  trouble 
about  me.  Let  me  go  off  quietly;  I 
cannot  last  long." 

The  doctors  continued  their  efforts  to 
relieve  the  patient.  He  was  bled  four 
times.  His  few  remarks  show  his  thor- 
ough conviction  that  all  remedies  were 
useless,  that  the  last  hour  was  at  hand. 
He  said,  with  a  smile,  to  his  secretary, 
that  "  he  was  certainly  near  his  end ; 
that,  as  it  was  the  debt  we  must  all 
pay,  he  looked  to  it  with  perfect  resig- 
nation." 

The  long  evening  wore  away.  Be- 
tween ten  and  eleven  o'clock  Washing- 
ton's breathing  grew  easier.  He  with- 
drew his  hand  from  his  secretary's  and 
felt  his  own  pulse.  That  act  shows 
the  habit  of  the  soldier,  as  well  as  the 


To  the  End— Dec.   17,   1799.      261 

clearness  of  his  mind  at  the  last  mo- 
ment. The  secretary  took  that  dear 
hand  and  placed  it  in  his  bosom.  He 
called  Dr.  Craik.  When  the  latter  got 
to  the  bedside,  he  saw  that  a  change 
had  crept  over  the  features.  He  placed 
the  dying  man's  hands  over  the  cold 
face.  The  strong  life  went  out  at  last 
as  an  infant  falls  asleep. 

The  next  morning,  when  the  late 
winter  sun  came  over  the  horizon, 
George  Washington  was  lying  dead  in 
the  simple  chamber  at  Mount  Vernon. 

The  disease  of  which  he  died — acute 
laryngitis — had  not  at  that  time  been 
differentiated  from  other  inflammations 
of  the  throat.  His  illness  had  lasted 
less  than  forty-eight  hours. 

Washington's  last  words  were  ad- 
dressed to  his  secretary,  "  It  is  well !  " 


262      Life  of  George   Washington. 

Nothing  could  be  more  fitting  the  char- 
acter of  the  man — the  close  of  his  life. 

The  blow  must  have  fallen  with  an 
unspeakable  shock  upon  the  country. 
Washington  was  hardly  yet  an  old  man. 
It  was  not  unreasonable  to  hope  that 
long,  happy  years  would  find  him  at 
the  fireside  of  Mount  Vernon,  or  riding 
in  summer  mornings,  a  noble,  venerable 
figure,  among  the  ancient  groves  and 
green  pastures  of  Mount  Vernon. 

Even  now  one  cannot  avoid  a  regret 
that  death  did  not  spare  him  for  awhile, 
to  reap  the  fair  harvest  of  so  many 
years  of  bitter  toil  and  sacrifice ;  to  find 
himself  the  central  figure  in  his  coun- 
try's heart  and  imagination,  and  to  see 
the  young  nation,  whose  liberties  he 
had  'won,  brace  her  energies  for  that 
long  career  of  progress  and  prosperity, 


To  the  End — Dec.   17,   1799.      2^3 

whose  splendor  has  so  far  outstripped 
his  largest  prophecy  of  her  future. 

Yet  there  seems  something  fitting  in 
the  thought  that  the  life  of  our  Wash- 
ington and  the  life  of  the  century  in 
which  he  had  acted  his  part  should 
close  together.  For  the  eighteenth  cent- 
ury had  a  lease  of  only  sixteen  more 
days  to  run,  when  the  winter  morning 
looked  into  the  quiet  chamber  where 
the  great  soldier  and  statesman  lay  in 
the  majesty  of  death. 

In  that  hour  of  grief,  everybody  must 
have  remembered  with  thankfulness  that 
death  had  found  George  Washington 
at  last  in  the  one  place  he  would 
have  chosen  to  meet  him. 

The  limits  of  this  book  do  not  per- 
mit any  extended  analysis  of  character. 
This  much,  however,  may  be  said : 


264     Life  of  George   Washington. 

George  Washington  is  never  a  per- 
plexing study  to  the  historian.  His 
nature  was  one  of  large,  simple,  massive 
lines.  It  forms  a  singularly  consistent, 
harmonious,  well-balanced  whole.  It 
has  the  largeness,  the  calmness,  the 
majesty,  of  some  ancient  statue. 

His  mind  was  of  an  eminently  prac- 
tical order.  One  does  not  look  to  a 
mind  of  this  type  for  swift  and  dazzling 
exhibitions  of  genius.  The  strong, 
clear,  robust  quality  of  Washington's 
intellect,  its  large  wisdom,  penetration, 
and  staying  power,  were  evinced  in 
the  most  trying  emergencies,  as  well  as 
in  all  the  details  of  life. 

But  it  was  in  the  moral  grandeur  of 
his  character  that  the  greatness  of  the 
man  will  always  consist — in  his  flawless 
integrity,  in  his  large  magnanimity,  in 


To  the  End — Dec.  17,   1799.     265 

his  unfaltering  patience,  and  in  his  un- 
swerving patriotism. 

He  must  have  had  his  faults — his 
limitations.  One  is  inclined  to  wonder 
sometimes  how  he  bore  the  "crucial  test 
of  the  dreary  intercourse  of  every-day 
life."  Yet  the  criticism  that  detected 
flaws  and  weaknesses  would,  perhaps, 
have  been  only  that  of  the  valet,  who 
never  sees  a  hero  in  his  master. 

It  has,  for  obvious  reasons,  been  much 
the  habit  of  historians  to  compare 
George  Washington  with  Napoleon  Bo- 
naparte. The  reasons  for  this  are  obvi- 
ous. There  were  only  a  few  years'  dif- 
ference— as  history  counts — in  the  ages 
of  the  two  men.  For  a  short  period  the 
time  of  their  public  careers  coincided. 
Each  was  a  central  figure  in  the  history 
of  a  continent.  Each  won  its  glorious 


266      Life  of  George    Washington. 

victories,  and  shaped  its  political  fort- 
unes. But  the  essential  differences  in 
the  characters  and  genius  of  the  two 
men  are  illustrated  by  their  ambitions. 
That  of  one  was  to  be  the  Emperor 
of  France — the  conqueror  of  Europe ; 
that  of  the  other  was  to  win  the  liber- 
ties of  his  country,  and  to  live  and  to 
die  "an  honest  man  and  a  farmer." 

But  when  we  reflect  that  the  "judg- 
ments of  time  are  inexorably  moral,"  it 
may  not,  perhaps,  appear  altogether  one 
of  the  ironies  of  fate  that  the  great 
Virginian  should  end  his  days  at  Mount 
Vernon,  and  that  the  great  Corsican 
should  close  his  life  on  St.  Helena. 

George  Washington  has  left  the  price- 
less legacy  of  his  memory  to  America — 
he  has  left  it,  indeed,  to  the  world.  The 
writer  of  this  sketch  can  think  of  no 


To  the  End — Dec.  17,   1799.      267 

more  fitting  words  to  close  it  than  those 
which  a  late  English  historian  has  added 
to  his  portraiture  of  our  first  President : 
"  No  nobler  figure  stands  in  the  fore- 
front of  a  nation's  history." 


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